True Lies - Stay Off The Lovecraftian Section of Grindr

Will and Sam do more glazing than a donut factory over James Cameron's action movie touchstone in which Arnold Schwarzenegger and Jamie Lee Curtis show off the fun, quirky and romantic side of brazen misappropriation of government resources and shadowy institutions accountable to no one.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:03

Richard Nixon.

SPEAKER_05 0:05

Richard Nixon. Richard Nixon.

SPEAKER_03 0:10

Alright, fuck. Alright. Here I go. What if a man once made a doll out of your hair? And then five years later you found out he directed a multi-million dollar blockbuster. And he invited you to the premiere of that blockbuster. And once you were seated and the film started playing, you happened to glance to the seat next to you and see there that same doll made out of your hair. Welcome to Slop Culture. Today we're took looking at James Cameron's True Lies, Stein Arnold. Yes, welcome back to Slop Culture, a happy hour podcast where we try to find the beauty and stupidity. Today we're looking at a action movie classic. A comedy action movie classic. I'm sorry. I am your host, Sam Sykes, and with me as always, a man who once told me, while we were touring an aquarium together, that just by sight alone he can tell which fish are virgins. It's Will Palmer. What goes into that? Well what goes what what do you look for?

SPEAKER_02 1:23

Well, I feel like a lot of the audience is going to look at this through a sexual lens. Which, you know, you don't you don't need to. You know, get your mind out of the gutter, audience.

SPEAKER_03 1:30

Okay, okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:32

Let's think about this from a purely objective scientific stance, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:37

Okay.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

And objectively, the fish that are of breeding age but have not yet uh you know produced produced eggs or what have you, they're they're objectively uh I feel like I'm doing a Jordan Peterson here. They're objectively thicker.

SPEAKER_04 1:55

They're objectively thick. They've got evolutionary advantage.

SPEAKER_02 2:04

No hate, uh Jordan Peterson. It's too easy, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:08

Do the same voice and talking about the same thing. No, wait, never mind. I was just gonna say like Jordan Peterson advising you on like what thickness to look for in in like an in like a human ass.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

Well, there's a ratio, really. It's called the golden mead. The Greeks actually uh they studied this. I know this. Yeah, the back of my.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

I feel like I drifted into Mickey Mouse with my well, that's the problem, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Is Jordan Peterson and Mickey Mouse? There's a lot of crossover there.

SPEAKER_04 2:36

There's a lot of crossover. There's a lot of crossover. You know, strictly speaking, Darwin didn't intend for everybody to live.

SPEAKER_03 2:46

Oh fucking rational, Mickey.

SPEAKER_02 2:51

Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_03 2:52

What have we unleashed? Alright, we gotta, we gotta we we should take this energy. Um today we're talking about uh true lies, but I was hoping uh before you might you might indulge me in a in just a little banter.

SPEAKER_02 3:06

Um always happy to.

SPEAKER_03 3:08

I was hoping to uh share an experience I had. Um do you guys have pedal bars over on the east coast? No, like um you know you know those uh I you might have seen one. I like I just want to make sure you're familiar. It's a bar, like it's a square bar.

SPEAKER_02 3:24

Right, but they make you ride on a bicycle where you do it.

SPEAKER_03 3:26

Yeah, yeah. And like everybody is has uh has some bicycle pedals on their bar stool.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

All of those pedals should be shot. And there's one like No, I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Please, God, no, that's parody.

SPEAKER_03 3:42

I was I was just gonna say, um I I uh happen to be walking to a meetup at a local bar. Oh, I live in uh I live in Scottsdale, Arizona, and they're quite quite frequently a sight there. And uh sometimes, you know, if you just want to pre-game and like not walk to where you're going next, you might hop on and just ride until it drifts close to the bar you're hoping to visit, you know?

SPEAKER_02 4:06

What happens if you like don't pedal if you just like kind of hitch a ride without without chipping in?

SPEAKER_03 4:11

I d I I feel like rare you know what? Like America America does not have a lot of sacred uh cultural aspects, but the ones we do are often based around drinking. So like I feel like if you're not peddling, I you know, like are you are you proud of that?

SPEAKER_02 4:30

Are you I mean I'd buy everybody a beer, I would be open about it. Like, I'm not gonna f I'm not gonna pedal this shit.

SPEAKER_03 4:35

Okay, so you you so you'll be you'll be capitalist about it. Like I think that's fair. I think that's it.

SPEAKER_02 4:41

I mean they all know I'm not peddling. I'm gonna say not actively rooting for us to get sideswiped by a fucking 18 wheeler the whole time, you know?

SPEAKER_03 4:48

You hate pedal bars so much you're gonna fucking fucking got get one on one in the hopes that it takes you to.

SPEAKER_02 4:57

Yeah. Oh my god. Definitely send a message.

SPEAKER_03 5:00

Send a message to daytime bachelorette party. This is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Well, much love to pedal bars. I'm just an out-of-shape piece.

SPEAKER_03 5:09

No, we're we're we're we're having a lot of fun today. We're this is gonna be a very silly episode.

SPEAKER_02 5:13

But uh, can you continue though? You were you were uh hitching a ride in the pedal bar.

SPEAKER_03 5:16

Well, I was going to say one of the reasons you go on a pedal bar is for that brief sense of community. No matter how fleeting, it makes sense. And I felt a camaraderie when I got on, and I happened to notice I was not the only person on. And that's not that's very go otherwise. Yeah, well, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 5:36

Like, is there like one guy at the front who has to pedal the whole fucking bitch if it's not just like there's not a crew on there?

SPEAKER_03 5:41

That's sucks for that guy. That does suck. But here's what I'm saying. I got on on one side of the bar, and on the other on and on the other side was all uh Civil War recreationists. Recreationists, I'm sorry. I'm interested. Which side? Northern, northern. They were all with with like the yellow handkerchiefs and everything.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Yeah, where I'm from, you don't really see too many of those.

SPEAKER_03 6:06

Well, see, here's the thing is as we went on, uh we happened to pick up more passengers, and wouldn't you know it? Uh some southern uh Civil War twist recreationists got on.

SPEAKER_02 6:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 6:20

And here's where things got really awkward is they all sat next to me.

SPEAKER_02 6:25

Oh, sure. So you're lumped in with the bad guys, right?

SPEAKER_03 6:27

I'm lumped in with the bad guys, but also I'm in the firing line.

SPEAKER_02 6:30

Like I'm not I'm not gonna cut down first volley.

SPEAKER_03 6:34

So obviously, obviously, I'm looking for a way to tastefully get out of here.

SPEAKER_02 6:38

Right, so you pull out your tub of blackface and start applying.

SPEAKER_03 6:41

Just bear with me, bear with me. Uh and we pull up to a spot that looks good, but I realize I can't get out there because there's another group of recreation of historical war recreationists, and they're Nazis. Oh, motherfucker, what and I'm like, okay, sh uh like okay, if I get off, if I get off, they're all gonna assume I'm with them.

SPEAKER_02 7:04

So no, I'm just it's the one more it's the one thing that could be worse.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

It's the one thing I gotta I gotta stay with the Southerners, you know. But I'm like, alright, just be cool, just sit here.

SPEAKER_02 7:13

I think anybody could understand that.

SPEAKER_03 7:14

And we went by and we see another spot. But you're not gonna believe this. There was another there was another another group of recreationists. These ones were not military. That's the good news. Oh no. The bad news when you see that. The bad news was that they were was that they were, I'm I'm very sorry to say, members of the Dutch aristocracy during the n during the North Atlantic slave trade. So they were the ones I've been to a party like that. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

So again, I think North Atlantic slave trade, Dukes, and slots.

SPEAKER_03 7:54

Yeah. So I'm just thinking Jesus Christ. We are sorry, you're l you're l you're listening, you're listening to Slop Culture. So, anyways, I obviously can't get off there either.

SPEAKER_02 8:08

I mean, that's an insane sequence of events, for sure.

SPEAKER_03 8:10

Yeah, no, I'm with I had to pick one, but yeah. Well, so finally we see one more group, and I look over, and they're Viet Cong, and I'm like, you know what? I think this is about as good as it's gonna get.

SPEAKER_02 8:21

Yeah, companion that Nazis Confederacy.

SPEAKER_03 8:25

So like I'm just like, gentlemen, I bid you ado. I hopped off, uh, and they were surprisingly, surprisingly quite welcoming. Pretty cordial, very cordial. You know, uh, they were playing uh specifically uh post-war Vietnam, uh Viet Cong, uh, who were more concerned with uh Chinese Chinese aggression. Well, they were more concerned with Chinese aggression in over their border than the.

SPEAKER_02 8:51

Because you know they would have got your ass day one in Vietnam, dude. You're talking about other than all the rice patties and shit that have been like that.

SPEAKER_03 8:58

If this had been like domed your ass. Uh were post-conflict. They had already ousted, they had already ousted they had ousted the uh the US and they had overwhelmed, you know. Well, you know, they had won the war.

SPEAKER_02 9:16

Victory with honor. No, no, mean no. No.

SPEAKER_03 9:21

This is this is where Will comes out as a as a denialist.

SPEAKER_02 9:26

Well was it like a victory with honor or whatever? Like uh we we had a euphemism for this.

SPEAKER_03 9:34

Victory with honor.

SPEAKER_02 9:36

Uh I'm just gonna Google losing Vietnam euphemism.

SPEAKER_03 9:39

Euphemism. Like a pig running a sushi bar. You just can't tell why.

SPEAKER_02 9:45

Oh, here we go. AI overview. Uh we didn't lose, we just left, or we didn't complete our mission.

SPEAKER_03 9:53

Okay. All right. Uh here it's here at Slop Culture, we are we are dedicated to jamming our feet in our mouths at all points. But uh regardless of who we offend.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

So if I still had tonsils, I'd be tickling them with my fucking toenails. Index.

SPEAKER_03 10:12

I'd be t I stick my feet in my mouth so much I can tickle my tonsils with my toenails.

SPEAKER_02 10:18

Yeah, no, I got my tonsils out when I was like five. Them shits got like fucked up and like infected or something. I don't know. Oh wow. Yeah, I had to get that shit.

SPEAKER_03 10:26

I'm happy. I'm happy for you. I'm happy that you're still with us today. I guess.

SPEAKER_02 10:29

I mean, I just don't know what it's like to have tonsils. Like, what's that like? Do you have tonsils?

SPEAKER_03 10:33

I do. It's fucking amazing.

SPEAKER_02 10:35

Yeah, is it like improve your quality of life?

SPEAKER_03 10:37

We all talk about you people. We call you uh we call it tonsilless. We call you we call you we call you gapers because that's so much worse than what I thought of. There's nothing that uh that interrupts that big gaping maw of yours. Swallow porridge, you fucking peasant. Jesus consoles peasant! I'm sorry, I'm working.

SPEAKER_02 11:01

I got to keep them in like a little jar.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

I'm working on this. I'm working on this.

SPEAKER_02 11:06

Shriveled little walnuts made of flesh.

SPEAKER_03 11:08

I think that's a great point to end the banter section on. And I want to talk to you. I want to talk to you today about Oh, I did want to ask real quick.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Yes, real quick. What was the end of this story, though, with you you evacuated into the crowd of Viet Cong?

SPEAKER_03 11:25

Oh, uh, I just I just walked with them to the next bar.

SPEAKER_02 11:29

Oh, you with them.

SPEAKER_03 11:30

Yeah. I mean, we weren't we weren't we've like joined. We weren't we weren't officially in conflict at that point, so you know it was fine.

SPEAKER_02 11:36

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 11:36

Or I think maybe we might still have been officially in conflict, but you know, the it the matter had been settled, is what I'm saying.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Right. I mean, like officially we were not. It was like were you working like unofficially, right?

SPEAKER_03 11:47

They had bigger concerns, and then they're like after that bar, they're like, hey, listen, we're gonna go fight uh Mao's China because they are incurring over.

SPEAKER_02 11:56

Yeah, I mean, fair. I wouldn't want that.

SPEAKER_03 11:58

Like, do you guys do you want to come? And I'm like, honestly, guys, I've had a couple of beers already. I don't think I'd be that much use. Plus, you know, the other stuff, I think it'd just be awkward for you. And they're like, okay, yeah. So we just fist bumped. Good. And I wish them well. I wish those guys played that played that pretty well, I'd say. Oh, yeah, you know, like winning options. Yeah, yeah. Oh, like you, I just I made the best of a bad situation.

SPEAKER_02 12:19

Sure. Um, but I want to talk to you. One more question. If the Nazis had offered you like a really expensive Hugo Boss trench coat, it was a perfect fit for you. It didn't have any like overt Nazi paraphernalia, but like everybody who like saw it would know, like, oh, that's what that is. But it's like it's like a$700 coat perfectly cut for you, and they're like, Look, like so our friends who like died wanted us to bequeath this to like someone we thought could wear it really well.

SPEAKER_03 12:50

So be because because we're offending everyone, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna load both barrels here.

SPEAKER_02 12:57

Here we go.

SPEAKER_03 12:58

I would take it, except I don't want a job in government. Fucking got him, dude. Gotti. You've been slapped.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

America, you just got slapped.

SPEAKER_02 13:21

No, I've derailed us for several minutes. You did love to discuss.

SPEAKER_03 13:26

I would love to talk about James Cameron's true lies with you. Uh and here on Slop Culture, uh, we have dithered enough on our panther. We are not in the business of recapping. There's plenty of other podcasts that do that. We prefer to be a little more artistic, and we reserve a slot of about two minutes for the party who has been recommended the movie to summarize what they thought happened, but only in two minutes. And anything else that happens outside of that two minutes is utter shit. Utter shit. So I since I was the one that recommended this, I believe, Will, with your permission, I will uh be timing you and you will be describing. Are you ready?

SPEAKER_02 14:12

Alright. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 14:13

In three, two, one, go.

SPEAKER_02 14:16

Alright, uh, we open with Arnold Schwarzenegger infiltrating a uh like a glacial chateau, which is a classic kind of villain setting. Um he tries to steal some shit, uh some I don't know, some technology bullshit. Um obviously demonstrating his uh super spy capabilities, escapes, uh goes back to his boring life back in the US. Uh the big plot uh arc, I guess, um involves him and his wife played by Jamie Lee Curtis and their very kind of tepid marriage, um just with her being a legal secretary and him pretending to be a salesman. And in the background, there's this like ludicrously high-stakes terrorist plot going on where this guy with a crazy receding hairline is uh like smuggling like warheads into the United States in like ancient like sarcophagi or something. But the movie like detours from that for about an hour and a half to uh uh follow Jamie Lee Curtis um almost hooking up with Bill Paxton and then not, and then Arnold like severely abusing his government authority in order to kind of figure out what's going on there. Um and weirdly enough, this works like for the film. Um we'll we'll get into it. It it works though. But then in the last third of the or so of the movie, it kind of uh dovetails back into that terrorist plot with the warheads, where um the bad guy with the receding hairline has his warheads, they get uh Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis together, the truth is revealed, and then the two of them do some pretty cool stuff um together and separately in order to save the day. Oh shit, okay. I'm crushing it.

SPEAKER_03 15:52

You got you got some time to kill.

SPEAKER_02 15:54

Yeah. Um they have a daughter who is just kind of there, I guess.

SPEAKER_03 15:58

Just kind of there.

SPEAKER_02 15:59

Yeah, just just kind of there. Um I'd say really the core of the the movie can be divided into two parts, and then that is one, the terrorist plot with the warheads, and two, the marital arc um and the reigniting of that that passion, that uh that flame, um, which takes up the middle, I don't know, like sixty percent.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

You are at your limit if you couldn't hear from my jaunty round. No, we're um that all sounds quite ac that sounds pretty accurate to me.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Uh I missed a lot because it's there's a lot of stuff that happens, but I think I get it. Well, it's it's difficult.

SPEAKER_03 16:32

It's difficult, it's difficult to describe everything because this movie is made up of very long sequences.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

It's not a short movie either. It's not a short movie.

SPEAKER_03 16:43

It's two and a half hours. Uh the first half hour is everything Will said it was. It's Arnold Schwarzenegger as secret agent Harry Trasker. Tasker, sorry. Secret Agent Harry Tasker, who works for Omega Sector in the government.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Badass. Fucking name.

SPEAKER_03 17:01

Oh badass. Which, as far as we know, is just American James Bond. And that's basically what he does. Uh he infiltrates a party.

SPEAKER_02 17:09

James Bond, but he's not gay.

SPEAKER_03 17:11

He's not he's he's a little tougher than James Bond. He's a little straighter than James Bond. Actually, I guess conservative James Bond is not bad because like this movie is very big on family values and make making the marriage work and compromising and blackmailing and blackmailing your wife with government resources. Yeah. So the first half hour uh is uh Arnold Schwarzenegger uncovering a plot uh to smuggle warheads to America, uh Soviet warheads to America through art installations that have a Persian theme, so pretty close with the sarcophagus.

SPEAKER_02 17:53

So we already know the mad guys, right?

SPEAKER_03 17:55

And then yeah, exact Jesus Christ. The Persian this movie actually This movie actually does like paint uh so these terrorists uh are specifically like the terrorists who are too terrorist-y for the other terrorists.

SPEAKER_02 18:10

Yeah, the other guys are like, dude, chill.

SPEAKER_03 18:12

Like, chill, you're you're you're you're a little too amped up.

SPEAKER_02 18:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:16

So these uh terrorists kind of act like uh uh I want to say Persian returners, like they keep talking, they keep talking up the the the Persian Empire.

SPEAKER_02 18:29

Back to back to Persia kind of yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

So like yeah, like so real Darius the First uh fanboys out here.

SPEAKER_02 18:36

Deep cuts.

SPEAKER_03 18:37

Very deep cuts. Uh but uh then uh in the course of learning all this, Arnold misses his birthday, and his wife wakes up, and it's very sad. His wife is played by Jamie Lee Curtis, and she's excellent in this movie. And then, to surprise her, to make up for it, he goes to visit her for lunch, only to find her on the phone with a mysterious another man. And then I sh I shit you not, this is where the terrorist subplot ends for about half an hour, an hour and a half.

SPEAKER_02 19:07

Longer than that, yeah, an hour and a solid hour and a half. And it's gone.

SPEAKER_03 19:11

The next hour and a half involves Arnold Schwarzenegger using his position in a high-powered government agency to tap his wife's phone, install a listening device in her purse, trail her movements, shadow her as she meets with another guy.

SPEAKER_02 19:29

After pulling agents off of active investigations, my dear.

SPEAKER_03 19:32

After like millions of people died, so that Arnold could so that Arnold could do this, blackmailing his associates into letting him do this, uh, and then finding the guy, threatening him, uh wait, no, uh finding the guy facing him.

SPEAKER_02 19:50

He brings an entire strike team with a helicopter and a printing.

SPEAKER_03 19:57

Moved her to a black site. Yes, and then gaslights her into thinking. Oh, yeah, that she has to like that she has to fucking serve as an enemy spy or her husband's reputation will be ruined.

SPEAKER_02 20:12

In the role of an enemy spy, she has to specifically be a prostitute.

SPEAKER_03 20:15

She has to dress like a prostitute and then go strip and do a sexy dance for her husband.

SPEAKER_02 20:22

But she doesn't know this. She just thinks it's like a guy, I guess, like a villain who is masquerading as another man. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 20:30

And then she fucking strips and does what must what what must be acknowledged as a very sexy dance. Sure. Uh and then she dicks him with a fucking telephone and makes a break for it, and then kicks him in the ribs and calls him a pig, not knowing that it's her husband.

SPEAKER_02 20:48

And then the other plot turns back in.

SPEAKER_03 20:51

And that's literally, literally. Pretty much the terrorists literally leap out of the bathroom and like, come here, you We got you now, yeah. We got you now, you bitch.

SPEAKER_02 21:03

And so they manage to I mean, you know, it worked.

SPEAKER_03 21:06

And then the remainder is uh the terrorist plot. And actually, it's kind of a marriage of the two where Jamie Lee Curtis and Arnold Schwarzenegger are kidnapped by terrorists and they sort out their relationship and come clean to each other because killing Muslim while killing a bunch while killing a bunch of terrorists who while killing a bunch of Persian returners.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

I'm gonna have to edit the shit out of this part. You're gonna have to edit the phone. I mean, including the the bad guy who lets just quick shout out to his hairline. Jesus Christ.

SPEAKER_03 21:43

Oh, wonderful. I actually wrote in my notes like this is one of like the nineties were like the last decade where men with receding hairlines could still get acting work.

SPEAKER_02 21:51

Like his hairline was like the three hundred Spartans at Thermopylae, bro. Just holding the line. Holding the line, dude.

SPEAKER_03 21:57

Slowly giving slowly giving.

SPEAKER_02 22:01

They know they're not gonna win, but there's honor in the fight.

SPEAKER_03 22:04

But I'm holding out I will yield not an inch without Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:08

I also love there's a scene where he uh where Annold does like the traditional like diving off a dock as it explodes, right? And yeah, diving into the water. And then right after that, the bad guy does like a little fist pump, goes like, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:20

I love that.

SPEAKER_02 22:21

I fucking love that shit. Like that is hilarious.

SPEAKER_03 22:25

We're not gonna cover him that much in the in the in the just podcast. So it it it pays to shout out the actor now. Yeah. But he he makes the character very fun. There's a bit where he as the head terrorist, yeah. If you want to look up his name real quick.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Arts Malik or Malik?

SPEAKER_03 22:42

Art Malik. Arts Malik.

SPEAKER_02 22:44

Art uh M-A-L-I-K. So Malik, uh I'm assuming Malik.

SPEAKER_03 22:48

Yeah, I I think Malik. Um Art Malik plays uh Aziz Abusari, I think, who is um who is the leader of the Crimson Jihad, which is the organization. They're the bad guys if you can believe it.

SPEAKER_02 23:05

I mean, I don't want to wear a sweater that has that on it. Like shit.

SPEAKER_03 23:09

Yeah, like there's there's only so many. There's only there's only so much friendliness you can do with the word crimson in your title.

SPEAKER_02 23:17

And like jihad, dude. Even Anthony Scaramucci couldn't fucking spin zone that shit.

SPEAKER_03 23:21

Yeah, no, he'd be I'd love to see him try that. Right. I wish he'd come back. I I he was fun. He was really fun. And he's he's he's kind of missed in this administration. I miss him. Yeah, I miss him. Anthony Scaramucci.

SPEAKER_02 23:36

Too much business, not enough fun.

SPEAKER_03 23:37

Anthony Scaruci, there's gotta be some light and shade, you know. Right? Anyway, um so there's this scene, there's this bit where Arnold Arnold uh Aziz kidnaps uh Arnold's daughter, and she steals the key to his nuclear warhead, and she escapes and climbs onto a crane, and he chases after her, and she's about to fall, and then Arnold comes up in a fucking like vertical landing. There's this moment where Aziz looks down and blinks like he can't believe how fucking stupid this is like motherfucker, really? He's like, Oh, come on! It's funny, but um here's where I want to start. This movie, I if you couldn't tell, I fucking loved this movie. This movie is a classic. I had never seen this before. Uh that's wild.

SPEAKER_02 24:29

I will I'd only seen it once, but that's wild to me you've never seen it.

SPEAKER_03 24:32

How how old were you when you saw it?

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Probably 14 or so. So I remembered it fondly. I just didn't remember any specifics and I didn't appreciate the nuances.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

Yeah, yeah. Like um, when this came out, I was 10. So uh I Jurassic Park had just come out the year before. I was not super interested in any movie that did not have monsters or aliens.

SPEAKER_02 24:56

Fair.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Uh I think Congo came out the same year, and I was all over that fucking movie.

SPEAKER_02 25:00

Is that the one with like the crazy smart monkeys?

SPEAKER_03 25:02

Oh, yeah, yeah. I read that booking. Oh, after Jurassic Park, like all of Mike and Michael Crichton's shit just turned to gold, man.

SPEAKER_02 25:10

Like, he was just like, all right, now how about if we had uh turds but they were sentient and they killed people?

SPEAKER_03 25:17

What if we had turds but they were man-made?

SPEAKER_02 25:21

I joke though. He was a better writer than I'll ever be.

SPEAKER_03 25:24

Oh, well, I mean, like obviously we're not here, but like we're we're not here to well, I should I should specify this. You might as well call this episode a bakery because we're gonna do some glazing. Because this was this was a great fucking episode.

SPEAKER_02 25:38

Uh great fucking movie.

SPEAKER_03 25:40

Great episode, but also I really I really fucking liked this movie, and I'm surprised because so much of this movie is fucking pants on head ridiculous. Uh the first uh so, like you said, this movie opens with Arnold infiltrating a s uh a party.

SPEAKER_01 25:59

Glacial Chateau, I think.

SPEAKER_03 26:00

Yeah, it's in it's in Switzerland, and Glacial Chateau is great. It's like owned by a Persian billionaire and who's who's funding who's funding the Crimson Jihad. And um Arnold infiltrates this party by scuba diving through some sewers and arc welding through a gate to somehow emerge in the swimming pool. Which is covered in ice which is covered in ice, at which point he changes into a tuxedo and wanders into this party. And while he wanders into this party, he makes sure to draw as much attention to himself as possible.

SPEAKER_02 26:36

Yeah, he gives orders to like half the staff.

SPEAKER_03 26:38

He gives orders, he acts conspicuous, he's getting in people's face and greeting them and like making sure they see his face and remember him. And like then he wanders upstairs and he down he goes on a Windows 94 PC. Yes, and he downloads the the proof proving that uh this billionaire is funding the Crimson Jihad.

SPEAKER_02 27:00

Yeah, he's doing malicious shit.

SPEAKER_03 27:01

And then he escapes.

SPEAKER_02 27:02

Uh yeah, there's a classic snow chase, there's bad guys on skiing.

SPEAKER_03 27:07

Yeah, yeah. Um, global warming for one. Like uh true. But like it is I I I want to take a quick moment and say I agree with you. I really like it. Uh I think it's something I feel like it's the same itch that gets scratched when you're a kid and you have action figures of the same guy doing but like doing slightly different shit. Like I like the I love skiing bad guys, I love scuba diving bad guys, I love bad guys on Twitter.

SPEAKER_02 27:38

Extreme sports bad guys.

SPEAKER_03 27:39

Yeah, extreme like paraglading bad guys, rollerblading bad guys, rollerblading bad guys giving a real giving a real new meaning to religious extremist.

SPEAKER_02 27:49

Yeah, they're in like that's good. They're on like hot, tight, fucking like you know, like curvy road going down there, like all in line skating, like right off the pond.

SPEAKER_03 28:00

Fucking X Games bad guy.

SPEAKER_02 28:02

It's a team of like roller derby champions.

SPEAKER_03 28:04

You know, you know why you know why I like it. You know why I like it, because that says to me that this is a bad guy who appreciates theme, who like appreciates some pageantry.

SPEAKER_02 28:14

I mean, hey, I'd rather get killed by that guy than someone who's just fucking boring.

SPEAKER_03 28:18

Yeah, like some thug in a suit. No, like I if I'm gonna get gunned down, let me get gunned down by like the fucking white ghost of Finland.

SPEAKER_02 28:25

Yeah, like do a gun twirl or something, do like a tricky one liner.

SPEAKER_03 28:30

Or fucking like gore me with a jet ski, you know, like that's a fun idea for like a very, very short story.

SPEAKER_02 28:36

It's just like workshopping the one-liner with the guy who's about to shoot you in the head.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

I think a really good story would be a henchman who has to keep f keep up the fucking hustle and has to keep like learning new skill sets because the villains are just getting more demanding.

SPEAKER_02 28:52

Just like, okay, like we need to strap into a rocket. I need you to build the rocket. It's like, oh boss, I just learned catapults.

SPEAKER_03 28:59

I just learned catapults. I was just working for the black knight. My entire skill set is medieval themed.

SPEAKER_01 29:06

Two weeks ago it was submersibles, boss.

SPEAKER_03 29:09

If you want someone to do swordplay, I can do that. Or if you want me to shoe a horse, I can do that. But this I I'm sorry, it's a young man's game.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

You're gonna need to find a cobbler, boss.

SPEAKER_03 29:21

You're gonna get a cobbler. Boss, if you need a blacksmith, I know a guy.

SPEAKER_01 29:28

If you need a cobbler, I know a guy at Foot Locker.

SPEAKER_03 29:31

If you know I know a guy at Foot Locker, but um I we're not gonna talk about every uh action sequence, but I do want to talk about this next one because it's the fucking weirdest.

SPEAKER_02 29:40

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 29:41

Um This is what I mean by saying it's like a series of sequences because these scenes just lead one into another. And in the next one, uh uh Arnold and his sidekick, who is played by Tom Arnold, are uh driving around and they're being tailed by the Crimson jihad. And so Arnold plays it real fucking cool. He gets out, he walks into a uh hotel, uh, and the terrorists follow him, and there's this amazing shootout in the bathroom where like they almost fucking get Arnold, but he fucking shoots.

SPEAKER_02 30:15

Porcelain flying everywhere, machine guns blowing apart urine.

SPEAKER_03 30:19

When it's all done, when it's when it's all done, this old man walks out of a stall with like his pants around his ankle and just looks around, confused. Yeah, I love that. And then uh the lead terrorist Aziz he escapes and he gets on a motorcycle and starts barreling through New York's. I mean River City, I'm sorry, River City.

SPEAKER_02 30:37

New York's New York Streets.

SPEAKER_03 30:39

It's New York, it's fucking New York. It's New York. Um, and then Arnold hijacks a horse from a mounted police officer and then uses the horse to chase the terrorist, and the terrorist then goes into an art gallery and fucking drives his motorcycle through the art gallery and fucking Arnold follows on his horse.

SPEAKER_02 31:03

Through the art gallery, through the art gallery.

SPEAKER_03 31:05

They end up in separate uh they end up in separate elevators doing an armed elevator doing an armed fucking standoff.

SPEAKER_02 31:13

Right. Like idling his fucking dirty. Arnold is riding a horse in an adjacent glass walled elevator as they ascend this skyscraper.

SPEAKER_03 31:25

If you have ever seen an episode of Scooby-Doo, you know what's so going on. Like it's it's literally that gag where they're chasing each other into an elevator, and then the elevator gets back up, and then they chase each other out of the elevator.

SPEAKER_02 31:37

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 31:38

So then the terrorist gets to the roof and ramps his fucking bike off the rooftop and lands in a rooftop pole.

SPEAKER_02 31:46

Like a sick, like a kick flip almost.

SPEAKER_03 31:48

Yeah, he does a fucking sick ass kick flip. Uh, and then Arnold's horse chases, but doesn't jump. It loses its nerve. And he goes, it goes he goes flying over the reins, and then he has to talk the horse into backing up and pulling him back up, after which he berates the horse for being a terrible cop.

SPEAKER_02 32:06

I mean, it's like uh the rock's camel, right, in uh Scorpion King, dude, betrayed by his own stunts.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

It's animal-based stunts at its finest. So I don't want to like there's a number of other action scenes that are fucking great, but like if we talk about them, we'll be here all day. I just wanted to draw this as a point for something we gotta talk about, and that's James fucking Cameron.

SPEAKER_02 32:28

James fucking Cameron.

SPEAKER_03 32:30

The fucking legend as well. That's the icon of the genre, complete fucking cultural icon, sometimes inexplicably. Like nobody remembers what happened in Avatar, and yet every movie that he releases makes several billion dollars.

SPEAKER_02 32:43

Nobody remembers what happened in Avatar, but everybody remembers Avatar.

SPEAKER_03 32:47

Everyone remembers he made it.

SPEAKER_02 32:49

Everybody remembers he made it, and everybody remembers like there was a blue guy. Like you got eye fucked in a good way, right? Like not I fucked, like you got like somebody made love to your your ocular dude.

SPEAKER_03 33:00

I just I described Avatar 2 as being waterboarded with a Windows 95 screensaver.

SPEAKER_02 33:06

I didn't see Avatar 2, it felt uh say it. I don't need that smoke.

SPEAKER_03 33:10

No, I mean fair enough. Like I went and I saw it, and I had to leave the theater a couple of times because it was just so fucking overwhelming. Like it just it was so saturated, like everything was just flooded with creatures, and it's like, oh my god, like underwater, like just all of them great, but like I couldn't pick out any individual ones because they were.

SPEAKER_02 33:30

You can see James Cameron like drowning a fucking like the best boy in the background.

SPEAKER_03 33:35

Oh yeah, just like the guy who's who's paid specifically to get drowned while Cameron's.

SPEAKER_02 33:42

Well, James Cameron almost drowned while filming uh the abyss. He like uh ran out of water in his oxygen tank. And uh the guy who was, I guess, supposed to be like paying attention to his like water or not his water, his uh oxygen alarm or whatever, topside. That guy had his eardrums blown out by a previous accident, so he didn't hear the alarm going off. And so James Cameron tried to swim up to the surface, but then one of the safety divers thought that he was panicking, and so he held him in place underwater to keep him from like surfacing, and so James Cameron. While he was drowning, yeah, while he was so James Cameron is literally punching this guy in the fucking nose, like trying to get him off of him so he can get up and you know breathe. And then he fired both of those men. Jesus Christ. But so I mean I would too. Shit.

SPEAKER_03 34:23

This this is this is a great place to interject this, um, because this is what I want to say about James Cameron. And you'll know, and I'll just cut to the chase, he's a pervert. And you know, on this podcast, we celebrate perverts. Uh we in filmmaking, uh we, you know, uh a director who is going to put the shit he's fixated on is like a director who's invested in what he's doing, and that's James fucking Cameron to a fucking T. Uh success ruined him, and he basically just could only be perverted by water afterwards, and like all he wants to talk about is water, all he wants to talk about is sea life. This is just this is his life now, this is the only thing he's into. He's like the fucking anime, the kid from anime club who would only talk about DBZ until he found Naruto, and now it's just Naruto, and that's James fucking camera.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

You're just waiting for him to hear about Attack on Titan, and you're just you just know he's gonna be an asshole about it.

SPEAKER_03 35:24

He's gonna be a huge asshole about it. But true lies has barely any water. No, that's not true. There's I'm sorry, that is not true. There is an extended water sequence where uh uh where Arnold dives beneath some flames.

SPEAKER_02 35:38

Um there aren't full scenes set in the water, it's not a major component of the plot.

SPEAKER_03 35:44

It's just adjacent to this movie is just perversion, uh in a good way. Cinematic perversion. It's just like I said, this it's very long. The sequences go on for a really long time. Yes. Uh the setting, the atmosphere, the action, the spectacle, all of it is decadent. I wrote. Like it's it's literally indulgent.

SPEAKER_02 36:08

It's indulgent to exhausting on that cake, dude. They put a little extra stank on it at the bakery.

SPEAKER_03 36:15

Yes, yes. Like it's it's a little it it it's a little odious almost. It would be if it wasn't done so fucking well, you would really ruin lament it. Um like you would you would be embarrassed by it. And this is uh this is his strength as a director, is that he's he'll put in anything that he thinks is cool, and it doesn't matter. He does not he is literally not thinking about what other people might say. And like he doesn't seem to executes James Cameron. Say what you want about James Cameron, but that man fucking executes on the he knows exactly what he wants to do and he does it, and he does not care if you like it or not, and like that's his strength because the confidence fucking sells it, because in so much of this movie the action sequences are ludicrous, their premises are weird, the dialogue is fucking nuts, and yet it's done so confidently, like he just doesn't care that I'm just kind of writhing in envy almost. Like, I that's amazing. Like he's just so unself-confident. Like, you could argue that like his he just he's able to sell this to a lot of well, he makes money, so he sells this to a lot of dexterous director, I think.

SPEAKER_02 37:29

Yeah. Able to juggle so many different aspects of it, right? Like the you know, you have the the action scenes just the straight up ones, then you have the comedy parts that are interjected in the action scenes, and yeah, the uh the whole fucking maybe not even side plot, the 60% of the movie dedicated to the marital plot, and that just somehow fucking works. Yeah, it shouldn't work, it does.

SPEAKER_03 37:48

Yeah, like like uh we did we just talked about the equalizer three and about how jarring it was that there's like it's bookended by horrific action, and then there's this beautiful little Italian travelogue in the middle. Same situation here, uh bookended by amazing action, and then in the middle this extremely creepy, but still somehow works. Um yeah, uh, you know, Arnold Schwarzenegger's character, he is an excellent spy, but he has often neglected his marriage, and his wife uh feels dead inside, she says later. Uh she is really struggling, and she feels like her life has passed her by and nothing interesting happens.

SPEAKER_02 38:31

So she turns to meth.

SPEAKER_03 38:33

So she does she turns close, she turns to Bill Paxton, which is often referred as the actor's meth.

SPEAKER_02 38:40

Oh, come on, let's Bill Paxton was the fucking man in this movie. He was his favorite character.

SPEAKER_03 38:45

So everybody, everybody in this movie was fucking selling it. Like everybody was working their ass on the street.

SPEAKER_02 38:50

And Bill Paxton just dipped himself in sleaze before going into this role. It's impactful.

SPEAKER_03 38:55

90s fucking legend, let fucking hot girl legend, Tia Carrera, is in this one.

SPEAKER_05 39:00

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:01

And she is she is selling the hell out of it. But uh the middle chunk of this movie is dedicated to uh Bill Pa whose character is legitimately great. He is a sleazy used car salesman who tricks women into believing he's an international spy.

SPEAKER_02 39:18

Yes.

SPEAKER_03 39:18

And then drives them out to a trailer and convinces them to bang him as part of their as part of his deep cover.

SPEAKER_02 39:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 39:27

Uh and later, uh fucking Arnold and Tom Arnold drive him out to a dam and threaten to kill him.

SPEAKER_02 39:34

And he just self-admits just to that in his underwear at the edge of the dam.

SPEAKER_03 39:39

Yeah, he's in his underwear, he's talking about his dick and how small it is. I'm a huge coward, I have a small penis, like I'm he lies to women to get laid, he doesn't even score that much.

SPEAKER_02 39:49

A lot of respect for that guy then.

SPEAKER_03 39:51

He was he was groveling, and then in the end, he groveled. Well, he's he's just fucking, he's just totally groveled.

SPEAKER_02 39:57

He a hundred percent grovelled.

SPEAKER_03 39:58

It was just committed groveling. Um and then it turns out he doesn't learn a damn thing because like right at the end of the movie he comes back and he's doing the same shit. You gotta admire the fucking hustle.

SPEAKER_02 40:10

Yep. Yeah, he plays that character to the absolute hilt, just such a dumbass sleaze bag.

SPEAKER_03 40:16

I'm just I'm just saying, like, I don't know. I don't know. Like, I feel like well, I mean, here's the thing is like I want to say that wouldn't work on me. Like, if a woman came up to me and started saying she was a spy and I gotta I gotta help her, and part of that help involves intimacy with her. I would probably work on me, dude.

SPEAKER_02 40:39

Especially around here, it's gonna be like some hot Chinese chick comes up to me as a side. I know, you're you're in the show. You should like plug this USB drive into your fucking computer, and then I'll fuck you and be like, well, I mean, sure.

SPEAKER_03 40:50

Other countries don't send their hot spies to Arizona, like we get we get the fucking C tier spies, we get the fucking spies they met on Tinder. We get the fucking spies they hired through an app, like a fucking like a fucking East German woman. Uber spy who tries to hit you up at fucking uh at a fucking baseball game. Like that's what we get.

SPEAKER_02 41:18

That's what we get.

SPEAKER_03 41:24

That'd be fun.

SPEAKER_02 41:25

Yeah. Uh I say fun, I think I meant horrifying, but depends on how you spin it, right?

SPEAKER_03 41:31

Uh I will I I I'm you got the different tiers, right?

SPEAKER_02 41:34

You got hit X for your like, you know, your cheaper kind of flexible hit. Sure.

SPEAKER_03 41:40

And you've got you've got like uh hit hinge, where like if you're looking for a more permanent assassin, right? And then you got bumble where bum bumble assassin hit bumble humble where where the assassin gets to initiate. The assassin must initiate.

SPEAKER_02 41:57

Dude, that would be a wild.

SPEAKER_03 42:03

Yeah, fucking getting texts for you, like, hey man, you gotta do it.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

This is Mikhail Romanov. This is Mikhail Romanov killing for you for much money.

SPEAKER_03 42:11

I am in your area killing people.

SPEAKER_02 42:15

You want to meet up for coffee and maybe a murder.

SPEAKER_03 42:17

Call now Dumbog a murder. Cheap rates for first-time clients.

SPEAKER_02 42:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 42:22

Uh fuck. Um so uh I want you to tell me, because you said something interesting about James Cameron, and then I want to segue into Arm uh Arnold. But you pointed out the incestuous nature between between James Cameron and John Woo. And I I feel like I'm using that word incorrectly, but you know what I mean.

SPEAKER_02 42:45

Yeah, I mean it's like a like an auroboros, kind of like a snake eating its own ass.

SPEAKER_03 42:49

Yes, yes, it's a human senti it's a self-contained human centipede.

SPEAKER_02 42:53

Right. Yeah, yeah, no, exactly. We're p you know, we're picking up what the other one's putting down. But uh I maybe I'm reading too much into it, but maybe I'm not. I don't know. I in the we talked about the uh bathroom shootout earlier, and I called out the shattering porcelain and the exploding mirrors and people like spraying machine gun fire everywhere, or oozy fire and whatnot everywhere. And I saw um I don't know if it were deliberate nods, but I saw echoes, at least that sounds douchey, but I saw echoes of uh John Woo films, especially hard-boiled.

SPEAKER_03 43:25

This is an artsy fartsy podcast. We can we can we can say echoes.

SPEAKER_02 43:29

Yeah, but I I some classic Hong Kong.

SPEAKER_03 43:31

Yeah, sort of like a lot of a lot of visual confetti, so to speak.

SPEAKER_02 43:36

Right, visual yes, a lot of exploding like porcelain plaster dust in there. There's a lot a lot of like in video games, it would be particle effects.

SPEAKER_03 43:44

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 43:45

Like but I saw a big um chunk of that in this movie uh reflected. And then um you look at it later on down the line, right? And John Wu released uh Face Off on look up the exact year, but it was after this. And Face Off, I think, had some Aspects that were taken from this when it comes to the uh secret agent keeping his secret agent life, you know, like separate from his family. He's got the the kid who gets involved in the final standoff and does something clever in order to free up the good guy to help fight to fight the bad guy. There's some ridiculous like vehicle involved in the final standoff, etc. etc.

SPEAKER_06 44:19

Right.

SPEAKER_02 44:20

I don't know. I just thought that was interesting, and they're both uh directors that I really enjoy. So seeing connections or making up connections.

SPEAKER_03 44:27

Yeah, I mean that's that's that's kind of the joy, right? Like that's the pretentious joy of talking about movies, is seeing how they connect because it's cool. It's cool to imagine that James Cameron is watching John Woo films and John Woo is watching James Cameron films.

SPEAKER_02 44:41

James Cameron's just sitting there on his couch, just like I want to take his face off.

SPEAKER_03 44:47

That's how Jay that's how I was thinking of a porn parody called Jack Off. Jad Jackslash Off.

SPEAKER_02 44:56

I want to jack his dick. Off there we go.

SPEAKER_03 45:02

Oh fucking so the reason I talk about all this excess and perversion is because I want to talk about the other big part of this movie uh our man Arnold.

SPEAKER_02 45:16

Arnold Schwarzenegger. Arnold himself.

SPEAKER_03 45:21

Arnold is the fucking George Washington on the Mount Rushmore of action films.

SPEAKER_06 45:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 45:27

He uh he is just the man who done it. Uh and True Lies hit in a very interesting part in his career, right after Last Action Hero when he fucking bombed.

SPEAKER_02 45:39

He was a bomb, damn.

SPEAKER_03 45:40

It didn't do well. Yeah, they actually fucking made a uh a joke about it on The Simpsons at the time. Shit, damn. Magic ticket my ass, McBain.

SPEAKER_01 45:48

Oh wow, that's ruthless.

SPEAKER_03 45:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:51

Um but yeah, it was it was right after that. Yep.

SPEAKER_03 45:55

It was right after that, and then after that came Jingle All the Way and Eraser. So this was kind of this was kind of like the last undisputedly good Arnold. And you're gonna be able to do that.

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Right, this is coming on the heels of um Terminator 2 Judgment Day, kindergarten.

SPEAKER_03 46:12

Running man, predator, Jesus Christ, and just a fucking string of hits like nobody had ever seen. I mean, this guy was just massacring. He was he was he was defining the art form, he was doing it, man.

SPEAKER_02 46:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:25

Uh and then uh, you know, after Jingle all the way, he kind of started that's when we entered like old Arnold phase. Uh but uh true lies Arnold was just peak of his craft, Arnold. Because he had it was like a culmination of everything. The action was more coherent than ever. Like his fuck his action game was still fucking solid. It's still fucking solid in this one. He has so much like pre-John Wick gun fu going on here.

SPEAKER_02 46:54

Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 46:55

Like, and it looks so good.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

Yeah, he's got that experience with the choreography and the action. He's not just brawling his way through everything. He's got the fucking moves too.

SPEAKER_03 47:05

And he's been he's been doing movies for a while, so his delivery and his acting is uh fucking like way better than it used to be. Like, he's always gonna be Arnold, he's always gonna have that very distinctive presence.

SPEAKER_02 47:15

So he's able to lean into the silly aspects, like he knows that his accent is a little silly and he leans into it at the right times.

SPEAKER_03 47:22

He's done a couple of comedies at this point, like Kindergarten Cop was fucking great. He also did Twins, I think.

SPEAKER_02 47:28

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:29

Uh with Danny DeVito.

SPEAKER_02 47:31

Mm-hmm. Where they're like, that was 1988. Yep, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 47:35

So he's done he's done a couple of really funny ones. His comedic timing in this is fucking on par. Oh, that's right. They call this an action comedy, and this is like apex action comedy. It's fucking great.

SPEAKER_02 47:50

It wouldn't be that without Arnold. It wouldn't be that without without Arnold. It should not be very comedic without me. I mean he's he's hitting them with both barrels on this one, dude.

SPEAKER_03 47:59

Like, yeah, like fucking uh he was he was he was action comp like he does a lot of what Chris Hemsworth does today, but he was doing it back then and he's fucking great at it.

SPEAKER_02 48:09

Yeah, and he's not you know a usurper prince. He's not the usurper prince. Arnold is the genuine king, that dastard, the true scion. I love I just love calling people dastards.

SPEAKER_03 48:23

Dastard, you dastardly Hemsworth!

SPEAKER_02 48:26

Right? Because I don't want to talk shit about his like parentage and you know like ancestry and whatever, but I am gonna call him a bad guy for usurping his brother's rightful throne.

SPEAKER_03 48:35

For usurping the black prince, Liam Hemsworth. Liam Hemsworth, shout out. I know you're listening. I know you're doing Witcher 4, so you gotta Witcher Season 4, I'm sorry, so you gotta you gotta you gotta fucking fill the days, man.

SPEAKER_02 48:49

For him, like doing Witcher Season 4. Like you remember that scene in Lord of the Rings where Faramir rides out of Minas Tirith toward all the orcs and they're all just shooting at him.

SPEAKER_04 48:56

They all just fucking like look up, like night fair.

SPEAKER_02 49:02

Yeah, I feel like Liam is is Ferrari. Just the entire viewing audience is the orcs.

SPEAKER_03 49:09

He's just he's just gonna give it his all.

SPEAKER_02 49:18

You know, like it's like you know, that fucking medieval battle where like that one badass fucking Viking held off all those Englishmen at the bridge for like however long. But then he got killed because some guy snuck under the bridge and then stabbed him through the bridge and stabbed him in the ball sack and like in the in the taint with a spear with a spear and killed him out. You know, that makes it like a little bit less cool. All the other English. Either way, he was a badass, but like he got stabbed in the fucking taint, bro.

SPEAKER_03 49:42

All the way leading up to that, there was just one Englishman who was just being like, I'm gonna stab him in the taint. And everyone's like, Alright, yeah, whatever, weirdo.

SPEAKER_02 49:50

And then real talk though, that guy did like it. Yeah, according to historical records at least, that one motherfucker did have like a 40 plus kill streak. Yeah, I mean insane.

SPEAKER_03 50:00

If you've if you've got a fucking if you've got one trick, use it.

SPEAKER_02 50:03

Yeah, and I mean look, I'm not saying I wouldn't have stabbed him in the taint. I probably wouldn't have been the guy suggesting it. I don't want to run into the giant insane frothing at the mouth berserker with an axe.

SPEAKER_03 50:14

Like, how about we go underneath and just poke him in the fucking as Bruce Lee once famously said, I do not fear the man who has stabbed a thousand different taints. Okay, I fear the man who has stabbed one taint a thousand times.

SPEAKER_02 50:28

I mean, I bet, dude. You know, fuck.

SPEAKER_03 50:31

This is a good this is a good segue into one of my favorite parts about this particular Arnold performance. Sure. He's a fucking psycho. Yes, yes, he's an absolute diabolical he's demented, dude. Oh, he is fucking rid weird as shit. Like he catches his wife uh talking to Bill Paxton because she never god bless her, she never cheats on him. Yep. Uh she explains like she's never made that mistake.

SPEAKER_02 51:04

Until the government blackmails her to act like that.

SPEAKER_03 51:05

Until the government until her husband forces her to be a whore.

SPEAKER_02 51:11

What does that say?

SPEAKER_03 51:12

Don't let me know. But she she uh later confesses that she did it to feel alive. And here's the thing is Arnold never comes out and talks to her. He cajually threatens her at times.

SPEAKER_02 51:26

Yeah, really ominous shit.

SPEAKER_00 51:28

He's just like goes, he's just like, I went to your office, I was going to surprise you with lunch, but you were there.

SPEAKER_02 51:35

Where could you have gone? He's like sharpening a butcher knife and is like, Oh, were you saying something honey? I wouldn't want to cut you off.

SPEAKER_03 51:42

I wouldn't want to cut you off. Yeah. And then he fucking follows her, he wiretaps her, he puts a listening device in her purse.

SPEAKER_02 51:52

Maybe that was romance in the 90s. I don't know. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 51:54

In the 90s, things were very interesting. Uh, this was just how we dated back then.

SPEAKER_02 51:59

The Clinton era, right?

SPEAKER_03 52:01

The Clinton era. Jesus Christ. But then he fucking kidnaps her and takes her to a black site where he interrogates her. Yeah, he's behind the two-way glass or the one-way glass or whatever. And at one point he starts interrogating her.

SPEAKER_02 52:16

And he's there with his homeboy, too. He and Al are just chilling there behind the glass game.

SPEAKER_03 52:20

It's fucking insane. He kidnaps this woman. I mean, his wife. His wife. And then he's like, he just basically says, like, you want to feel alive.

SPEAKER_00 52:28

We will give you an assignment. You are to be our spy. And if you do not work for us, your husband would be ruined. Your family would be destroyed. Your child now tell me, have you had sex with your husband lately? Car salesman. Did you suck his penis? Was he circumcised? Was he circumcised? Was he bigger than me? And she's like, wait, who's made? He's like, was he big? Was he bigger than your attractive average husband?

SPEAKER_02 52:58

But he just like goes belligerent on her. And to Jamie Lee Curtis's credit, she fucking I thought that was really good acting when she finally just gets fucking she goes from being freaked out to just being tired of their shit.

SPEAKER_03 53:09

Yeah, yeah. So we'll we'll talk about this because she's she's and like I think I'm almost done talking about Arnold here. Um because he really is like at the top of his fucking game, and he really and like the creep shit, he sells it, and like everyone points out how he's European, right? Everyone points out how yeah, he's like, no, he's just Austrian, it's fine.

SPEAKER_02 53:28

Yeah, just keep that worse.

SPEAKER_03 53:30

Just keep him away from David Hasselhoff, he'll be good. Oh so um but like it is weird that he fucking like It's profoundly strange he suddenly has this moment of intense closeness with his wife. And we're like we're like he finally un where like he's finally told how difficult her life is and what's going on, and like he finally understands what's going on with her, and his first instinct is I will threaten your family if you do not work for me.

SPEAKER_00 54:01

You must dress up like a whore, you must dress up like a whore, you must be a whore for my pleasure. You have to enter this one very specific scenario that I can't.

SPEAKER_02 54:16

I mean, I noted down that like that scenario where she comes in, you know, pretending to be a hooker, and he's like sitting there with like his face perfectly obscured by shadow. Like, you know that he had to like spend a few minutes setting up the chair for that to like make absolutely sure it's like oh fuck, it's gonna right.

SPEAKER_03 54:31

I wanna I want to bring up something about that later, but uh I wanna I want to mention this. Uh and I think this is gonna this is gonna seal what I what I want to say about Arnold.

SPEAKER_00 54:41

I remember watching an episode of Conan O'Brien, and I'm sorry I can't remember the actress, but there was an actress who uh was saying uh was describing her time on a movie set with Arnold, and like he was an adult, she was a child, uh, and at one point uh he was the child is half of a Nunchaku and like I was straight up around. I launched them from a bow like arrows. Sorry, I had to wrap it back. That's what we that's what we did in kindergarten carp when things got rowdy, or when we got bored, and the preschool in Austria was very different. There were many feral cats behind the set. I would hunt them, I would I would use the children as little dogs and force them to go in the camps.

SPEAKER_03 55:33

Um uh so she described it was her birthday, and Arnold uh took her and her friend out to lunch. Okay, and then while they were driving, he says, Look at this! Like, drives onto the sidewalk and is just laughing, laughing like a fucking maniac. And apparently later, uh when they when they went to lunch, he ordered a chocolate cake for her and then shoved her friend's face in the cake. I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say I'm gonna say, I have no idea if this is true. I have no idea if that really happened. I can't remember if I hallucinated it. I won't I won't dispute that. I am in no way asserting any of that is fact. I'm just saying that that came to me while I was watching Arnold blackmail his wife into becoming a spy. As like a s yeah, no, she didn't get to be one of the fucking straightforward practical spies you can.

SPEAKER_02 56:36

She didn't get like a hidden gun. It was just like girl, you better slot it up fast.

SPEAKER_03 56:40

I mean, to be fair, uh, this is very that like that's the price of admission, right? This is one of those situations where crime fighting is not done by not hot people, except Tom Arnold. I wanna I want to give it a qu like I'll I'll I'll summarize it this way. Arnold has a commanding officer who wears an eye patch in this movie.

SPEAKER_02 56:58

Yes, he does, dude. This is that you know that guy's seen some shit.

SPEAKER_03 57:02

You know he's he's there's a reason he's in charge of Omega Sector.

SPEAKER_02 57:06

Omega Sector and then like the whatever faction, right? The Crimson Jihad faction. Yeah, these are just fucking like absolute chad names. I mean, it's like counter-strike teams.

SPEAKER_03 57:15

Exactly. These are fuck this is like a fucking World of Warcraft situation.

SPEAKER_02 57:20

Yeah, I mean the names for these these groups alone are fucking.

SPEAKER_03 57:23

Oh, yeah, absolutely absolute fucking Chad names. Like I think they aren't even like dedicated to anything, they just came up with the names first and built up around them.

SPEAKER_02 57:31

Okay, Omega Sector.

SPEAKER_03 57:32

I mean what about Crimson jihad? Oh fuck, I would join that.

SPEAKER_02 57:36

Yo, I I would join the shit out of Omega Sector.

SPEAKER_03 57:39

I would love to work for Omega Sectors.

SPEAKER_02 57:40

I hope we have an Omega Sector. If not, like we should.

SPEAKER_03 57:42

Would you work for Omega Sector when when fucking Arnold's command to spy on his wife came down the line?

SPEAKER_02 57:50

Would you still be into it? I would do my duty for my country. I I wouldn't necessarily be into it, but look, uh Okay. You know. I at that point I would have been told it was for a legitimate purpose. Right. Were I to know otherwise, I would probably have to at least report it to a commanding officer. I'd probably still follow the regular orders, but I would still I would report that function.

SPEAKER_03 58:13

In the end, she works she works with him. She ends up working with him.

SPEAKER_02 58:17

So what's the moral there, right?

SPEAKER_03 58:18

I mean, in so in this situation, in this hypothesis, I proposed you would uh you would be like the little pawn in their in their sex games.

SPEAKER_02 58:25

I would.

SPEAKER_03 58:26

You have to liaison between their sex games. Oh boy, that'd be rough. So terrible. I want to talk about she is not necessarily she's one of the main characters, but uh she's not she doesn't get to do all of the action, but I gotta say, the plot revolves around her. The most interesting parts of the movie hinge on her, and she still gets she still gets action sequences and they're fucking great.

SPEAKER_02 59:00

She gets more and more cool stuff as the movie goes on.

SPEAKER_03 59:05

She's so great. Uh she's the heart and soul of this movie. Jamie Lee Curtis is what makes this movie move. And for one reason, well, for numerous reasons, but here's the biggest Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis have amazing chemistry.

SPEAKER_02 59:22

It's not quite on the level of Helen Miren and Vin Diesel, but it's like No, not quite, but you know, like, you know, bitch, you don't know what you know because you haven't seen that Vin that fucking Fast and Furious.

SPEAKER_03 59:31

No, I'm sorry, I got I got confused. I thought you meant James Duty Jen.

SPEAKER_02 59:35

Um and Vin Diesel. Oh, no, they don't really have that. They don't really after this episode's over, I'll show you a quick clip of it. But like that clip, like alone is just like, holy shit.

SPEAKER_03 59:45

Like it is a little weird. It is a little weird that Vin Diesel has had chemistry with two different dames. Um like that I'm just I'm not saying I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying I wouldn't have expected that.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:00

Yeah, I mean that's all American right there, dude.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:02

Um so uh what am I trying to tell you? Uh so she Jamie Lee Curtis. Yes, uh almost all that chemistry is coming from her. Like, not that Arnold is a bad partner, but like she's the one who's most invested, she's the one who's acting her ass off, she's the one who you actually end up caring more about because she's the one whose character goes through more of an arc than just oh maybe I should tell the truth like like instead of lies.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:30

Maybe I should tell the truth instead of forcing my wife to become a prostitute. Perhaps I should talk about my feelings instead of forcing my wife to become a life of sexy spy craft.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:44

Um but uh I'm just imagining like a freeze frame on like him with like his head all bleeding from her bashing him with the fucking phone, and like she's screaming like he's bleeding all over the carpet. All the fucking crazy fucking Islamists are bursting out with guns pointed at their heads like you might be wondering how I got in this season.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:05

Records scratch. So I wanna I want to talk about that scene because I really fucking liked it. Uh you hawny bastard. This movie, uh this this this movie uh is mostly about a relationship. Like the spy stuff is mostly there to squeeze their relationships and force them to be open with each other. Yeah, to get the uh true lies. So the relationship well done. Um should hit me for that. If I could, I would. But she uh after she gets uh contacted because she believes she's a spy at this point, she is told to dress sexy, and this whole sequence, she's told to dress sexy and perform for a uh a shady business guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:54

You have to dress like a whore, and there would be a man in the sexy who likes to wear it.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:59

I want to tell you this this sequence that just explains her whole deal. Sure. They tell her to dress sexy and come to this hotel. She shows up in this really frumpy librarian outfit. Yeah. Like just so fucking ludicrous. Her hair looks like shit, but like this is her idea of sexy, and like that's kind of funny. Like, that's that's funny, is that she's being told to dress sexy, and she shows up like she's like, Okay, I I I can't believe I'm doing this. And she shows up in like the least sexy thing she can imagine. But then, like, at some point this becomes real for her, and she's like, Okay, fuck, I gotta sex it up a little more. And I loved that her she just starts tearing pieces off her clothes until it looks like a very sexy black dress.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:44

I mean, it tears away very conveniently to look very good.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:47

Yeah, and then she goes in and the verisimilitude was worse. She goes into this suite at the Marriott uh and finds a man shrouded in shadow.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:02

But just like his head and torso, like he's leaving spread and just like chilling in the chair. He looks like Arnold.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:09

He's under the Arnold's clothes, like he's wearing Arnold's clothes, and by the way, he has a fucking walkman. He fucking home alone, sir. He fucking he has a French agent record him saying some sexy shit, and then he plays that on a walkman.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:27

And then he like accidentally hits like forward too many times, like fuck the poke!

SPEAKER_03 1:03:31

Fuck the poke. Almost, almost, like he has to like he has to like re-rind and repeat himself a couple of times, and it fucking works, which is a fun gang.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:40

She falls for it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:42

So um he instructs her to strip, and despite showing up in a very frumpy dress, she does, and she has really sexy underwear underneath.

SPEAKER_02 1:03:51

Well, I mean, as one does.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:53

I mean, I j I just thought that was very interesting, where she's like where they're like dressed sexy. She's like, Alright, I'll wear my sexiest underwear. But I'm gonna dress like a fucking frumpiest dress. Like, I would it makes me wonder like if she was going for something there.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:04

Yeah, I'm gonna look like a librarian that only needs leaves.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:07

I'm gonna fake him out a little. I'm gonna fake him out a little. I'm gonna be like him. I'm gonna be like I'm gonna I'm gonna show up dressed like a librarian and then bam, hit him with a sexy underwear. Uh throw a quick juke in there. Uh but she strips and then he commands her to dance sexily and she does. Well that's what crazy fucking phrase.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:28

He commands her to dance sexily and she does.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:31

Well, well, here's the thing.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:33

That is what happened.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:34

He tells her to dance first. And she starts doing this really, really like white girl dance where she's just like where she's just like jerking her arms outside.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:45

Oh, damn, I feel like that's what I would do.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:47

And then like for some reason, I guess Arnold knew this was gonna happen because he had the French man record no dance sexy. But like, I guess he knew his wife wasn't gonna fucking go for it.

SPEAKER_02 1:04:59

Dude, imagine like that like deleted scene of like Arnold like in the trailer with the French guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:04

It's like, no, I need you to say now, dance sexy.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:07

Say now, dance sexy. Do it! He's got a gun pointed. This isn't even another agent, it's just a guy.

SPEAKER_00 1:05:16

I want to taste your gut flora. I want you to say, I want you to tell her to dress up like a like an anime protagonist from Delicious in Dungeon. Tell her that I want to familiarize my tongue with her gut's microbiome. Tell her I wish to taste the inside of her esophagus. Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 1:05:40

Um but then she starts doing a sexy dance and she like fucks it up a couple of times. Like she falls on her ass once or twice, and she like almost drops her wedding ring and then like plays it off by like picking it up and putting it in her mouth and acting sexy. And then he says, Now you will lie down on the f lie down on the bed and close your eyes. And then what I think it's intended to be hot, but it actually comes off as quite chilling. I know exactly the she lies down on the bed and Arnold comes over with a rose. And he comes over, he comes out with a rose and just kind of trails it over her body and her face.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:19

Menacingly.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:20

It looks fucking creepy.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:23

Sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:23

And then as he leans over to kiss her, she grabs the telephone and fucking fucking fucking brains him, dude.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:30

Absolute KO. Perfect shot. I love that shit. For her, that's the right thing. That's the right move. I respect that.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:37

That was the right move. And she fucking decks him. And then when he she he falls on the floor, absolute slobber knocker in the head kicks him in the fucking ribs and says, You pig, and she grabs her shit and the shit she's supposed to be liberating from this guy.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:50

And then as she's going, he goes, Helen, Helen. And then and then the terrorists show up, and literally the terrorist plot picks back up. But like this sequence. Man, you're freaking about us.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:06

A convenient break in the action.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:08

There's a witch among them.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:13

Oh no. That's like a gritty reboot of the Wizard of Oz.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:17

I'm going to sell I'm going to feed them the stew I made out of kids.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:22

Yeah, the the wicked witch of the East was crushed by a UNICEF like airdropped.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:28

That's her origin story.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:30

She's good after that she resolved to destroy the United Nations.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:34

Sure, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:37

Um, but the reason I want to talk about this is this sequence summarizes so perfectly her character because she has a completely different idea of what sexy is. Uh she doesn't really get into it until she just lets go and gives in to that passion. And like we don't often talk about it uh on this podcast, but like she fucking like became a sex symbol with that. And like I feel like sex symbol has negative connotations. Oh uh boiling someone down to a symbol, removing their personhood, whatever. Like, there's probably some argument against that.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:15

But no, like just Rufford B. Hayes, Gerald Ford.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:18

Like, she was you could just you could just be uh a positive.

SPEAKER_02 1:08:22

Have you ever seen a picture of Gerald Ford like when uh before he was president? Fucking smoke show that guy. He was crazy hot. Politics ruined. Maybe not the brightest boy, but god damn, I only made him hotter.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:34

That only made him hotter. Um but uh she's she's fucking hot in this, she's fucking gorgeous, and she's fucking fun, and her action scenes are great. Like her her dance scene, like that came out at the same time a lot of people were like fucking hitting puberty. I'm sorry, like just it's about the circumstances. She showed up exactly as uh as people were hitting puberty, and that emblazoned itself. I oh shit, you weren't kidding. Will has just uh sent sent me a picture of Gerald Ford, and he's right. No, that's a fucking honk. Right, dude? Like that's that's amazing. That is that is beyond a smoke show. That's like fucking that's a 20 gun salute right there.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:20

It is not what you expected, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:22

Yeah, fucking just look it up, man. Like if you don't believe us, look it up. God damn. But um, you know, like this is and this is part of movies, you know, like you're gonna have a sexual awakening around something you see on a movie. I'm sorry, that's just how it goes.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:38

Well, I mean, that is how it literally how it goes, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:41

But in this case, like it works out really fucking well. Like, she's just so fun, and you know, it is sexy, but the sexiness is still in character. Sure. Because she fucks up a few times, and then when it comes time to like actually let this guy who she thinks is a bad business dude kiss her, she fucking dicks it on the phone. Like fucking, it rules. Um, and like that's her character is so great, and her chemistry, like the character is so strong that she just has chemistry with everyone. And her character.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:16

Even the uh what's her face? Tia Carrera?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:19

Even Tia Carrera, like they have a really they have a really like good chick, bad chick.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:23

Yeah, they got maybe like two or three scenes together, but like she sells it every single one. Like, oh, I hate this bitch.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:29

Jamie Lee Curtis is firing on all fucking cylinders here. Like, she is at she is at the peak of her game as well, and like she's had a storied career at this point, so like fucking she earns her spot as an action movie icon here, and it just fucking rules. Like, that whole sequence is so great that it's just it's it's wonderful. And like, I seriously think she is the best part of this movie, uh, because it's her insecurities that uh that or well not insecurities, it's her it's her feelings, shall we say, that drive her to do what she does, which drives Arnold to do what he does. Scary is enough. Uh I like it's it it's it's very driven me to do this. Like on a personal note, I want to mention it's very flex. Come over here. I want to on a personal note, like I was I was worried about talking about this movie because I used to hang out in a very like uh very scoldy community, you know.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:31

That's fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:32

And you would uh you would get yeah, yeah, but you would get shit for like saying like, oh, I really like this movie, and someone would be like, Oh, you like this movie about a guy abusing his government authority to do something terrible. Uh, but it's surprisingly easy to talk about.

SPEAKER_02 1:11:47

Uh you gotta lead with like, I enjoy triumph of the will, Lenny Rice's all was a real one, and then you backpedal from there because they're gonna be like, Well, if anybody knows, they'll be like, What the fuck?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:01

They just did old negotiation tactic, like claim to like the most offensive thing and then walk backwards from there.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:07

I mean, I was gonna say it's not triumph of the will, but it literally is. That was that was the one.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:13

Oh my god.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:14

Um, I do not endorse Triumph of the Will.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:17

He does not endorse Triumph of the Will for the record. He was just just doing a joke. Just doing a joke. But remember, because we watched this movie, we agree with everything that happened. And because you listened to us talk about it, you agree with everything that happened.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:30

Agree with what happened. So this is just your Clinton era diplomacy. This is awful. Good old-fashioned Clinton era diplomacy. This is how we I I'm I'm I when you think about it, frankly, if you look back at the 90s, I mean, uh, to be fair, uh, I was only like seven at the end of the nineties.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:47

But being real, like being real, people were fucking joking about Clinton doing this shit. Like that was that joke remained that joke remained fresh up until like fucking 2020.

SPEAKER_02 1:12:57

Well, which one?

SPEAKER_03 1:12:58

Right? But just like Bill Clinton, Bill Clinton being horny, that was just a joke that ran all the way to 2020, and then yeah, well, in general, presidents stopped being funny around that time.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:11

Like, yeah, I'm trying to think of presidents that were still funny and like whimsical, and like uh everybody's got like some like George George Bush was kind of funny, but like completely unintentionally. Every day's father. I think about terrorism. Every day of the week, I think about terrorism. Every day every day, except for Sundays. Actual quote.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:33

Actual quote that's fucking funny, and he doesn't intend that to be funny.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:36

Now watch this drive. And then he to be fair, he fucking nailed that drive. George W. Bush, I don't know if you've seen it. The uh like this is gonna sound lame as fuck, but sometimes when I'm feeling down, I will pull up a vid the video of George W. Bush throwing the first pitch at uh Yankee Stadium after 9-11.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:54

People fucking loved him right after 9-11.

SPEAKER_02 1:13:57

Dude, he fucking from the mound crushes it. Perfect pitch. Like everyone's like, ah, you know, he's wearing the FDN Y jacket. Like he just fucking nails it. Like just in the moment when he needed to. Absolutely.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:12

Well, no, Obama was the last jock president.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:15

Um was Obama a jock?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:16

Yeah, he played basketball.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:18

Oh.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:19

Uh, but shoot, what was I gonna say, dude?

SPEAKER_02 1:14:22

Like you sure about that?

SPEAKER_03 1:14:27

Um shit, what was I gonna say? It was about fucking uh W. God damn it. Oh, goddammit.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:33

I mean, W was he's he's got whimsy to him.

SPEAKER_03 1:14:36

Yeah, like it it it kind of stopped being whimsy at. But oh, here's what I want to say. Um a lot of time is passed, and looking back on it, there is something like really profoundly American about staring into the camera and like vowing revenge on your enemies and then saying, hey, check this out, and then fucking knocking a fucking like if they put that in a movie, people would fucking love it. Like oh yeah, no, like if fucking Matthew McConaughey did that, people would fucking go nuts.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:07

Well, I mean, you know that there was an Oliver Stone movie, uh W with uh Josh Brolin as George W. Jamie Lee Curtis is a crucial last time.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:16

And like she is the most fun part because Arnold is fucking capable, and there's this wonderful scene where Jamie Lee Curtis has an Uzi and her husband, her husband's on the rope, they're trying to escape the terrace. They're trying to escape the terrace, and uh fucking Arnold's in a chokehold, he's gonna be able to get it.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:33

She's at the top of a staircase, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:15:34

She's at the top of the staircase with some uh with a fucking Uzi, and he goes, shoot, and like, you know, you know, save the day. And she it's like this is this is her hero moment, and like, you know, in fucking uh if this were made in in the fucking 2020s, she would like reveal herself to be an expert fucking marksman and like snipe everyone expertly. But this was the 90s when things could still be fun. So she starts shooting, immediately loses control of the gun, it falls down the stairs in slow motion, and just through negligent discharge, just kills everybody. Like a dozen people, like a dozen fucking characters, not her, but like just races. It's great the whole time it's happening. She's got her hands up by her face in that, like, oh my god, oh my god, like she's like, Yeah, it's what I would do if I dropped the fucking. She's genuinely fucking mortified that she dropped, like, she's so embarrassed.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:30

I mean, which is perfect because it makes sense for the character, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:16:32

Yeah, it makes perfect sense. She doesn't have experience firing a fucking Uzi, but then but she's just like, you know, she's saying, like, oh my god, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:40

Like, yeah, like I'm sorry, I know I I know everyone was counting on me, but yeah, it's like she knocked over the dishes instead of dropped a you know, yeah, yeah, machine pistol and killed like 50 people.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:50

It's so fucking good. It's like I I the normally we're we get more nitpicky about uh about uh what goes on in the movie, but like I really just wanted to cover the big three Cameron, Arnold, and Curtis, because she like it it it only works because they're all working together on their A game. Like only Peak Arnold could pull off these scenes, only Jamie Lee Curtis could make Arnold look like fucking that charismatic and like fucking be such a goddamn asset, and only James Cameron could come up with this shit. So like it really is such a rare and wonderful movie, and like it's a rare mixture. You know, on this on this podcast, we don't recommend like we recommend everything, like everyone should see everything we talk about because this is fun, like this is all fun, but this is like a genuine fucking classic for a really good reason. It fucking rules, and I loved it so much. Um uh what did you did you have any thoughts we didn't get to?

SPEAKER_02 1:17:52

I have a couple, uh quick notes. Um well, there are a few like specific uh quotes from this film that I wanted to cover. Uh one, the one that established Al as my favorite character in the movie was uh what kind of a sick bitch takes the ice cube trays out of the freezer talking about his ex-wife. I mean, with or without context, that is a 10 out of 10 line.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:15

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:16

His character is that he's the thrice divorced guy who's Al will always have yeah, well, yeah, but at the same time, Onald keeps him around for not only when he's interrogating his wife in the black site, but then when they're raiding a bunch of like bad guy compounds and shit. Al is a versatile homie.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:32

Oh no, he he's capable throughout all of this. He's just also the comic relief. Fair. Um hit me with the next quote.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:38

Uh, is when uh it's during uh uh I think the first interaction that Arnold has with Bill Paxton where he pretends to be like an interested buyer.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:47

Yeah, Bill Paxton is a used car salesman, so Arnold is pretending to be interested in a car so he can drill him for information.

SPEAKER_02 1:18:53

Well, they're uh you know talking, and Bill Paxton's bragging about how he pretends to be a spy to pick up chicks, and then if I'm not mistaken, he but he refers to Jamie Lee Curtis's character as having an ass like a 10-year-old boy, which is which I note is just an insane thing to say in any context. Like, I don't I don't want to think about it, but I think there isn't any good context for that.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:14

I I was I was very young during the 90s, so I admit like I didn't absorb all the culture, but like I just don't think we talked about that.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:22

Like I don't think that was a good joke I had there though.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:25

Yeah, no, come on now, come on now, come on now, let's keep it clean. Well, also, like, what's what's Jamie Lee Curtis doing where she's got the ass of an ass level?

SPEAKER_02 1:19:40

And like, there's so many sexier ways of describing an ass than that.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:43

That's one of the things that's Yeah, like that's that in no way does that com commute communicate to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:48

Sounds kind of like gaunt.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:49

Yeah, no, it that's that is really funny, though. Like, some guys sitting down, like get into a conversation, like, yeah, this girl I'm seeing now, fucking a real undernourished ass. Really, really fucking withered. Really got these long tree branch-like limbs.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:09

She's got this malaise to her.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:12

She's got this, she looks sick all the time. Her her fucking eyes are clouded with a deadly fever that I prepared to do.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:20

She coughs up blood and a little handkerchief sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:22

From one of her eight mouths. I'd say something, but you know, all her organs are on the outside, so I can tell when she's trying to talk, she just she just screams at me with the sound of a thousand crows. She just screams. I try to take her out with my friends, she ate them. And then she regurgitates them just to taunt me before she eats them again.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:49

And there's Joey and Freddie and other Joey, and they're just these regurgitated piles of boff, and she's just looking at me like but as she digests them, their faces start appearing on her body.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:04

It's disgusting. But now I can hang out with my friends and my girlfriend at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:09

So at the end of the day, really, like at the end of the day, what are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_03 1:21:12

What are you gonna do?

SPEAKER_01 1:21:14

What's a little bit of existential horror? Now I think my my comies right here. We can all do the same thing. I'm sorry, babe, I didn't call you a bitch.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:25

If you don't like it, don't go on the Lovecraftian section of grinder. Uh all right, you got another quote?

SPEAKER_02 1:21:35

Um, I agree.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:37

That one was that that was a really that stands out as very peculiar. I think it was meant to sell us how sleazy he was, but you really didn't need to at that point.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:45

Yeah. I've got a couple uh other ones. One, I noticed this with all or I noted this with all caps. When they're uh about to be tortured, or Arnold is about to be tortured, and it's like, oh, what do you think his specialty is? And the guy's like taking out all the tools, and Arnold's like, Oh, hygiene. I mean, literally right before he said that, I said aloud, dentistry, and then I felt so clever when Arnold said something.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:07

Well, he fucking he made it even cleverer. He fucking like dialed it in.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:11

I mean, you know me well, man. Like, yeah, I would shit talk the torturer, not for very long, because then he would like you know make my penis skin into a mask or something, but like make your foreskin into a mask. No, I don't have a foreskin. My whole penis skin. Like just take the whole take the whole thing, leave it like a shrieking, bleeding, like you know, and then he then he makes it into like a little fucking uh masquerade ball mask. He puts a little bit of a few.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:36

Is this how you is this how you imagine is this how you imagine telling the world that you're circumcised?

SPEAKER_02 1:22:41

Damn, no, I just kind of figured they'd assume.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:43

Oh, because we because we're podcasters, you gotta assume we're circumcised.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:47

Yeah, I mean, yeah, in my head canon, I figured like grandpa kind of like that fell in the same bucket as like the the revenge baptism.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:55

Exactly.

SPEAKER_02 1:22:56

You know, I got revenge baptized, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:58

Yeah, our our grand our uh your parents didn't want you to be.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:02

My mom didn't give a fuck. My dad was just being my dad, right? And so my grandpa Tony, our grandpa Tony, too.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:08

Our grandpa Tony just stealth baptized him, like getting into heaven whether he wants to or not.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:13

Yeah, and then he called my mom very like uh triumphant, and my mom was just like, Okay, that's fine. And that like blew his mind. It's like, what? You're not you're not angry? Like, no, his soul was saved.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:24

Grandpa had a had a lot going on.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:26

He was in the grandpa was a character, dude. We should do an episode on grandpa at some point. That isn't now.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:32

That isn't now. Like, we gotta wrap this up because yes, last uh couple things.

SPEAKER_02 1:23:36

Uh oral hygiene, that's what I would have guessed. Uh last two. Um, when Arnold looked at uh Tia Carrera, yeah, right? And it's like your damaged goods lady.

SPEAKER_03 1:23:46

Like that's a fucking ruthless fucking it is a little unfair because Arnold, like the the scene that per se precedes it, Arnold is just like, Why are you working for these terrorists? And then she says, Well, they pay they pay me.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:00

Like, yeah, but she's clearly also like getting like the shit beaten out of her by hairline, receding hairline, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:24:06

Yeah, he slaps her a bunch.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:08

It's fucking yeah, he's like con every other scene they're together, he's just like back like pin panding her, like he's fucking Sean Connery.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:14

Tia Carrera gets slapped a lot in this movie, like yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:19

Every other line she has is just slapped.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:21

No, she only gets slapped by two people, but it it does stand out. It happens repeatedly, it does happen repeatedly. Like nobody nobody who slaps her slaps her just once. I will.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:31

But also calling someone damaged goods like without the context of a good pun, that's ruthless. And I don't think Arnold had a pun for that. I think like he wasn't even pointing at like statue. It was just like emotionally, like your relationship with your dad probably has all sorts of lyrics to unpack, and none of them are good.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:48

He does make some clever put-downs for some other enemies, but never with her. He just straight up insults her and calls her a psycho bitch.

SPEAKER_02 1:24:55

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:56

So all right, what what's hit me with the very last one?

SPEAKER_02 1:24:59

Uh, you probably know what this one is when uh the bad guy is tangled up on the on the missile, and the Arnold pivots the Harrier jet to face through the uh the building. So he's aiming the missile right at the helicopter full of other bad guys, and then so Arnold fucking he's in a Harrier jet.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:17

He comes up, he comes up to a floor full of terrorists, he uses the machine guns to blow out the windows and take out the terrorists. The other terrorists at this point are in a helicopter, and as the final thing is the Aziz, he gets tangled up by his harness on a missile, and Arnold aims the missile through this floor he's just shot up at the terrace in the helicopter on the outside, and he looks at Aziz and says, You're filed! And then launches him and he blows up the other helicopter. It is the peak of action movie bullshit.

SPEAKER_02 1:25:53

Like I'm just imagining Aziz on Sari as like the he's strapped on the fucking missile as he's flying through the new to me, baby.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:07

I would love that. I'd fucking love that.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:09

Great line, great delivery. I just haven't written that fucking peak.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:13

Just because I I feel like that we have gone on quite a long time about this one. We have was such a delight. Uh I feel we should wrap it up. We should indeed and talk. Uh again, just like this this movie is a classic, it's worth seeing just for that. But like it is it is literally, it's like pretty much the last big high point for Arnold's career. I mean, that sounds mean. He's had a very long and storied career, but like this was the last of his undisputed everybody loved this hit. Sure.

SPEAKER_02 1:26:50

Yeah, we could like nitpick about the definition exactly. You all know what he means. Don't be an asshole.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:54

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this was the moment when uh fucking Jamie Lee Curtis just became an icon. Like this, like she again.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:02

This cemented her place. She'd already like kind of earned her position, but she like planted the fucking flag with this motherfucker after Halloween and everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:10

Yeah, with Halloween brought her credentials, but this one, like, this was just like the fl the flag on every multi-position threat. Yeah, no, she was completely great in this. This is James Cameron right before he went water crazy. Right before he got water on the brain.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:25

This is this is such a special movie, and it's so good, and everyone's such an intersection of like fantastic talents and fantastic careers, right? Like the perfect point.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:36

Stars aligning, man.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:37

And I know it's hard to like hear what I'm saying because I have this movie's dick so far down my throat.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:41

But yeah, I know, like, like it is a good movie. It is very difficult for me to talk all the way down here while I'm fucking eating its asshole out.

SPEAKER_02 1:27:49

Yeah, yeah. We're both going at a different end.

SPEAKER_03 1:27:54

You know, you this this is the only movie where you'd spit roast it. All right, this that's the happy hour podcast. That's why it's happy.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:05

That's why it's happy.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:06

Um, all right. Would you like to do a little housekeeping? Yeah, and then we'll decide what movie we're talking about later.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:11

Sounds good. Uh Slop Culture is a podcast hosted by Sam Sykes and Will Palmer. Uh I'm Will Palmer. He's Sam Sykes. Please give us a five-star review on whatever platform you heard us on. That's five stars out of five. Anywhere you've seen us, fucking telegram, carrier pigeon, ongo shit.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:29

Terragram, smoke signal, fucking. If you if you're the Blair, if the Blair Witch is out there and you're and you're leaving those little uh Dreamcatchers and shit. Those little those little creepy dolls around, just give us five. Just you know, and like a wicker man.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:41

Five wicker men out of five.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:43

Five wicker men out of five.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:44

Yeah, I mean Sam Hain, dude, we're not against it.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:47

No, no, Sam Hine, you're you're right here. Yeah. Uh I I think Sam Hines. I don't know. I'm sorry. Uh apologies to the Luciferists out there.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:54

But we're trying to be culturally sensitive to the pain. Trying to be culturally sensitive.

SPEAKER_03 1:28:58

Trying to be culturally sensitive to the witches out the.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:01

I don't want to get chained up inside like a giant man made out of wicker and then no, not not after last time. No.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:08

Fucking not after San Diego, not after San Diego.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:10

Not after San Diego. Who does it? Anyway, our cover art is by Andrew Sides and our intro music is by Joe Roy. Uh, you can find me on social media at uh Will underscore Palmskis or just uh Palmskis.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:22

You can find me at Sam Sykes Swears wherever I am. Uh Will, what do you want to watch next next uh week?

SPEAKER_02 1:29:30

Um oh, and uh you can also find us, sorry, uh you can also find us at slotculturepodcast at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:36

Yeah, if you have any recommend if you have any request well, no, I'm not gonna encourage you to request. Just if you have anything to say. If it's make sure it's not fucking horrible and then send it, and then we'll see.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:47

It can be kind of horrible, but like it can be kind of horrible. If it's a little horrible, just horrible, but like not reprehensible, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_03 1:29:53

Artistically horrible would be great. Artistically horrible. Like going on.

SPEAKER_02 1:29:57

You know who else is artistically horrible?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:01

Van Gogh.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:03

I mean, that was the first one that came to my mind because he's the one that like cut off his body parts, right?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:08

Yeah, he was having a tough time. He was having a tough time.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:10

Yeah, lots of people have tough times. They don't cut off their fucking body parts.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:14

Well, I mean, some do. I mean, fucking.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:17

I did. I don't I can't think of any other examples.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:19

Will when your art is in a fucking museum, you can talk shit about Van Gogh. But until then, you can just stick your thumb up your butt. How about that?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:29

Reasonable.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:29

You know who else stuck their thumb up their butt. Alright, what do you want to watch? What should we watch? It's your turn to recommend. We have uh we've done this. Was a Schwarzenegger, and this was big for us, so face off. Face off?

unknown 1:30:43

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:43

Time to do face off. Alright. Join us next week for face off, starring John Travolta and Nick Cage. Uh also directed by John Woo. Yes?

SPEAKER_02 1:30:55

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:30:55

All right. Uh please join us then. I am Sam Sykes.

SPEAKER_02 1:30:59

I'm Well Palmer.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:01

And this has been Slop Culture, our happy hour podcast. We thank you for joining us, and until next time, stay sloppy.