True Lies Vs. Eraser (Ep. 0043)

Written By Kyle Castro

It was only a matter of time before the Movie Wars crew released an Arnold Vs. Arnold episode. Drew and Phil treated Kyle to cigars and Thai food for his birthday while we watched "Arnold" on Netflix. Needless to say, it was inspiring for us. We ditched "Mr. And Mrs. Smith" (which is a good match plotwise) for the ultimate Arnold fan matchup. By many standards and opinions, "True Lies" is considered to be Arnold's finest work, while "Eraser" marks the end of what film scholars believe to be Arnold's golden era which started with "Conan the Barbarian" in 1982. Often maligned, the MWP crew found a lot of joy in "Eraser" and the throughlines were too hard to ignore. Get erased and lie to your spouse about your career. Check out "True Lies" Vs. "Eraser." 

Help the crew make more shows and keep this operation going by supporting us on Patreon! Also, the easiest way to help MWP is sharing with your friends and on social media.

Film Summaries

Eraser

John "The Eraser" Kruger is the top gun in the US Marshall Witness Protection scheme; he erases their past and deals with their future. His latest assignment is whistle-blower Dr. Lee Cullen, who has evidence against a major arms corporation that's selling weapons to terrorists with the collusion of rogue enemy agents within, but there is danger nearer home for Kruger, from within his own department.

True Lies

Secretly a spy but thought by his family to be a dull salesman, Harry Tasker (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is tracking down nuclear missiles in the possession of Islamic jihadist Aziz (Art Malik). Harry's mission is complicated when he realizes his neglected wife, Helen (Jamie Lee Curtis), is contemplating an affair with Simon (Bill Paxton), a used-car salesman who claims he's a spy. When Aziz kidnaps Harry and Helen, the secret agent must save the world and patch up his marriage at the same time.

  • Rating: R

  • Genre: Action, Comedy

  • Original Language: English

  • Director: James Cameron

  • Producer: Stephanie Austin, James Cameron

  • Writer: James Cameron

  • Release Date (Theaters): Jul 15, 1994 Wide

  • Release Date (Streaming): Oct 7, 2016

  • Box Office (Gross USA): $146.3M

  • Runtime: 2h 21m

Thank you Rotten Tomatoes for the info! 

TRANSCRIPT


[00:00:00] Movie Wars episode 0043. Did Phil die? Did Phil actually take a spike bat to Kyle's head? If you don't believe my lies are true, ask Arnold. He'll erase you too. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to a long awaited episode 0043 of the Movie Wars podcast. Keep your head up and your asshole puckered. This is Kyle.

[00:00:23] I don't have a quote. Uh, your luggage. I'm Drew. Taking a page out of old Phil's book here. No, that's not true. It's nothing. It's a few numbers and some plastic. What you are is in here, and no one can take that from you. It's me, Filnold. Now let's make out by the fire. Which, at early rando, apparently there was a romance scene after that scene that they cut because it didn't play.

[00:00:48] Yeah, yeah. I had to go with that quote because of how just out of place and ridiculous it was in that movie. She's like, they're gonna find me, I'm gonna Oh yeah, she throws [00:01:00] all her s**t in that film. fire and, uh, is like, well, that's everything that I am or whatever. He's like, no, what do you all is in here?

[00:01:06] And he's like pointing to his chest. I'm like, what the f***? He's talking to like a seven year old girl. Like what the hell anyway? Yeah. And there's a lot of reasons that there's more randos that pertain to why, why eraser is the way it is, but you know, it was only a matter of time before this podcast became an Arnold versus Arnold podcast.

[00:01:22] Have we ever done that? I don't think we've done Arnold vs. Arnold. What?! We have had a couple of actor, like, actor versing themselves, but Thank you so much for everyone bearing with us. It's been a crazy summer for us. I moved. Uh, Drew's had a lot more tour dates. We've all had family stuff. Phil, the award winning sound engineer, has absorbed a bunch of amazing work.

[00:01:38] Crazy. I've been Finishing the final edits on my book. Uh, it's been a crazy summer, but we're back. Someone actually asked if we were okay. Someone sent me a message like, Did Phil die? Did Phil actually take a spike bat to Kyle's head? And, no, that didn't happen. Well, it did. He did, but you survived. It was the wrong Kyle, actually.

[00:01:53] It was the wrong bat. Turns out it was the one without the spikes. It was the one with the noodle pool noodles sticking out of it. Yeah. Yeah. It was very soft. Very weird. It [00:02:00] floated. Chill landing on the old cabeza. It felt pretty good. I'll be honest. This one might be the hardest matchup to, like, not get scenes mixed up.

[00:02:08] Oh yeah, they are very similar movies. Very similar era, similar, obviously, Arnold's. Well, one reason for that, you and I talked about it, is that, um, Eraser pays a lot of homage to other, like, we were pointing, like, that was like Point Break. Like, there was all these little pages. Totally. They were pulling out of a lot of other action films.

[00:02:24] RoboCop, a little bit. You know, and we joke about this, but what's funny is, we got the, the boys here, Phil and Drew gave me an amazing birthday, made me drink some water, Thai food, and then we watched the Arnold documentary, and Ooh! And, and Phil confessed that even though in some of our early podcasts, you'll hear him making fun of Arnold.

[00:02:38] Arnold is now a hero of yours. Yeah, he's a hero of mine. Yeah. Like, uh, I think by way of Kyle's influence, he's really become a figure that I've grown to respect a lot. I still hold that he's not a good actor, but you know, what's the measure of a man is not his acting skills. Especially when they get paid 25 million a movie to act.

[00:02:56] But surprisingly, it's funny you mentioned that [00:03:00] because he doesn't get a lot of Bromance in his movies. Yeah. Like think about it. Predator, Terminator. There's not a lot of, he usually is just like the mission and his guns are his love. Like that's what he does. Yeah. He's got a lot of, he got the world to save.

[00:03:14] It's not to say he doesn't have an enormous penis. Enormous. And we actually were gonna do Mr. and Mrs. Smith, but all three of us just, even though the through line was there, there are through lines here too, but even though the through line was there, it was just really hard to compare True Lies to Mr.

[00:03:28] and Mrs. Smith. And they are so similar, when you pop up True Lies on the TV, Mr. and Mrs. Smith comes up right after it. It's just like Yeah, the thinking was definitely along the lines of a A matchup that had a lot of, you know, parallel correlation and, you know, different eras. I guess it really not that different, maybe 10 years, 10, 12 years apart, however long apart those two movies were.

[00:03:46] I'd say similar different eras, but I mean, the through line being, you know, secret life hidden from your spouse, et cetera. Yeah. But in, you know, for you, the audience, we decided to stay integritous to our, you know, Goal and, uh, only cover [00:04:00] movies that are actually good. Yeah. f*** Mr. and Mrs. Smith. Some bulls**t.

[00:04:03] I know, and, and he, like, cheated, totally cheated on Jennifer An Jennifer Aniston in that movie on An with Angelina. It's just unacceptable behavior. Not an Angelina fan, so I took my side on that one. But, uh, as much as I love both of these movies, it's interesting seeing a fully realized Arnold. And what, what I mean by that is I realized watching True Lies and Eraser that it made me realize so much of what I love about Arnold is like the early 90s and 80s films where he's still learning English.

[00:04:28] Um, like you said, he's still kind of coming to into his own as an actor. A lot of the movies, even though they were amazing, didn't have great budgets. I'm thinking about Predator and Terminator and Commando. Those movies were not. Explosive budgets like true lies at the time just like t2 at the time was the most expensive movie budget in history 100 million dollars T2 before it was also at the time when it came out was the most expensive movie ever made So yeah, and and that's funny because it's all the money spent.

[00:04:51] I know it doesn't it doesn't feel like that, right? It feels kind of small cheap as f*** It's more about like I feel like it's more about him and Jamie [00:05:00] Lee Curtis's relationship than it is about anything else. Yeah. Wait, so True Lies was one of the most expensive movies at the time. It was the most expensive.

[00:05:06] It was the most expensive movie before that was, well, that one makes sense. I'll tell you something. You saw it. They definitely didn't spend money on, uh, the freaking plane scene and the eraser looks like he's dude. That, that was, or the CGI. Okay. I have. Thoughts. We'll get to that. Alright, let's get there.

[00:05:23] But it was interesting seeing both of these, and there's a lot of reasons for it, right? Like, so Drew and I have both read the book, the Arnold book. We all three watched the documentary. You know, Arnold is approaching his political aspirations. Eraser was made during a time where he was actually really trying to clean up.

[00:05:38] I got an amazing rando about this. Oh, I can't wait. But he was trying to clean up his image. The closer he got to trying to, you know, to get elected and, and uh, cause he had political aspirations since the eighties, but he didn't really start coming around to it until the mid nineties to the 2003 when he won the governorship.

[00:05:52] But you know, he starts to clean up his image. He starts to be a little more cautious about what he's, he's doing on screen. He also started showing [00:06:00] though. I mean the first thing he slams the guy's head in the It's true. Well, you, that's what you want in a governor, you know, it's, it's if my governor, I don't care about policy.

[00:06:07] Who have you killed? You know, who's rotting at the bottom of the pond on your private golf course. That's what I want to know. Exactly. And you know, and lastly, one of the things about these movies is they feel especially true lies. It's, it's like, what does it want to be? Is it trying to be tongue in cheek?

[00:06:21] It feels like on one hand, it really is trying to be tongue in cheek. Although I think True Lies is a little bit of an homage to Bond. It's got the kind of those spy elements in it, but it's James Cameron. So eventually he gets to the amazing Arnold action scenes, but it felt like up to that point, it was trying to be like a kind of almost making fun of itself.

[00:06:36] Yeah, man. True Lies was weird because like. Uh, well, I don't, we didn't need to get into this now, but um, that movie, it was a comedy. It was. Both of these movies are funny. It wasn't clear until like a good ways into the movie that it was like a comedy. Once you delve into the marriage. Because I was actually super confused for the first.

[00:06:54] It's like 30 minutes or so of true lies, like I'm watching this movie and I'm like, dude, this movie is f***ing [00:07:00] ridiculous. Like it's, it's absurd on so many levels, but it's like, it wasn't funny enough to trip you, to tip you off that it was a comedy and it wasn't serious enough to be like a serious action film.

[00:07:10] So it doesn't know what it wants to be like. It wasn't until he's talking to the f***ing horse on the roof. That I was like, oh, this is a comedy. He's like, what are you doing? You should have, you should have saved me or whatever. What kind of cop are you? Yeah, it was that part that I was like, oh, this is actually a comedy.

[00:07:27] And I think this is just my theory. What you're sensing, it's it's based on a French film called La Tataille. Yeah. And I think you are seeing Have you seen it, by the way? No, I haven't. I actually did look for it. It's really hard to find. Just like, True Lies is Good lord. Gosh, can we, like, have a segment just bashing the streaming?

[00:07:41] For those listening that, like, I hope you suffered with this, like, you cause I posted, right? I always want our fans to tell us what they think of the movies coming in. Hell yeah. They probably couldn't find it. Yeah, exactly. Funny story, five months ago, you and I were smoking cigars and I was like, we, because Drew and I have been watching all the Arnold movies together for like the past two years and I was like, we've, I think it's time to watch True Lies.

[00:07:59] Couldn't find [00:08:00] it. It just so happens that when we decided to do this matchup, it pops up on Apple and then both of us went to rewatch it this week to to, because we, because there was a long time I wanted to do the same. Yeah. And lo and behold, it's gone again and it's not anywhere. I couldn't just do, yeah, I watched it last week.

[00:08:14] It was up there. I think I had rented it or it was on Prime or something. It was on Prime. I watched it on Prime. I was going to zip through it again just kind of because it had been a week or two and then it was gone. Yeah. What the? Yeah. What happened? I don't understand the licensing world. The streaming s**t is getting out of hand.

[00:08:27] It's not getting out of hand. It's been out of hand for a long time. But it affected this podcast and for that Paramount must apologize. What I don't understand, this is totally off this podcast topic. I get if you want to like, if a deal ends with A certain platform and you're negotiating for the next one, all that makes sense.

[00:08:44] But why would it fall off somewhere that you could purchase or rent it? I know. I wanted, I, I, I always ordered 4k discs. Always have it on, it should always just be on Vudu and Apple and Amazon to rent or buy. And this is a love James Cameron Arnold movie. This is a beloved film. [00:09:00] Right. We're talking about.

[00:09:00] It's the French version you were just talking about. This is a beloved film. Most, a lot of people think this is Arnold's best movie. I'm just like, and you can't get it anywhere. Anyway, that's a side, you know, that's a side thing. But before we get into it, a little bit from the fans here. So, uh, put out the poll.

[00:09:15] 73 percent of our fans prefer True Lies. over, yep, over the eraser. Some comments here from Chase, uh, on our Instagram. A loyal fan who sends us a lot of messages. He says, I'm gonna side with True Lies. Eraser has horrible CGI and True Lies had better practical effects. Also, the police horse chasing motorcycle is awesome.

[00:09:33] Thank you, Chase. I love you. I do. I agree with everything. I actually do agree with Chase. That horse thing. Was the most insane thing ever, but it was fun. It really was. It went on a little long, but it was fun, because it was so insane. Obviously there were some scenes where like, that's not Arnold, that's a body double.

[00:09:49] Oh my god, it was so obvious too. Arnold body double, like I was just like, so bad. It was so obvious. Like you're like, that's another person like all together. Do you look like streamable? They're like, they're [00:10:00] trying to fix it before they put it back up. Yeah. He's fake Arnold. He looks like s**t. What are we doing?

[00:10:04] Mr. Brad, another one of our loyal Instagram followers had a different point of view. I'm trying to avoid saying their last name. So people don't dock them for their amazing opinions. He said true lies versus a racer. The only thing better about a racer is the EM one rail gun. That thing is sci fi hilarity at its best.

[00:10:19] Just wrecking s**t in the flick, but outside of that, maybe that snowy cabin. Uh, setting it for a bit. True lies is better in every way. Thank you, Brad. Not a bad point on the rail gun. I, I liked the gun. It was fun. Mm-Hmm. . A rail gun. You said? I have . I have, I have like a category about this. I still have no idea what that is.

[00:10:36] Is it a laser? Is it Mm-Hmm. . So remember electromagnetic pulses, projectiles, but at like in obscenely high speed. So yeah. It was like aluminum or something, right? Yeah. In this case, they said in the movie it shoots something aluminum. It shoots like. Spent, I think it was like spent shells, spent uranium shells or something like that at the speed of light, which f***ing ridiculous.

[00:10:56] Remember 007 on 64 had railguns only mode? Oh. But [00:11:00] didn't they call them moonrakers or something? What were they called? I don't know. I never really played that game. All I know about railguns is from Metal Gear Solid, you know, one of the most famous. Scenes when he's talking to I think Donald Anderson. He goes a railgun you said which I'm going through now at your leadership Yes, you're at your behest your guy I've been texting him for tips on beating the bosses cuz that game does not hold your hand on the PS No, it's not.

[00:11:23] It's like here's a boss in a room None of this s**t makes sense very stiff game. Yeah, I'm loving every second of it So anyway, thank you for the fans that contributed here. Let's go into I love those takes by the way Fully on board we I like the fans We've got coming y'all we get people we get people sending all kinds of great message.

[00:11:41] I love including it. Thank you Mr. Brad and mr Chase and thank you to our patrons as well I I just launched a and you guys are finishing your list But I just launched my number 50 video about my number 50 movie of all time on our patreon So thank you to our patrons amazing patrons and drew. What are your uh, what are your thoughts on these films?

[00:11:56] Well, like you mentioned you we've kind of been watching through [00:12:00] arnold's discography or Filmography and I've kind of become, after reading his book and watching his documentary, I've kind of been, become infatuated with sort of his career and it's, especially his movie career. And both of these movies, they are interesting entries in his career.

[00:12:18] You know, with True Lies, it's like, it's sort of him becoming a big boy. Like kind of a real Hollywood actor. I mean, he's always, he's already a Hollywood actor, but like sort of a serious actor working with James Cameron. And like, he was trying, you could tell he was trying to do something outside of what he had always done with a racer.

[00:12:34] It was like, like you said, he was trying to like. Macho bad boy appeal, but clean it up a little bit as he's about to make his like campaign push It was like he was trying to prove he could still do this 80s thing, but it was 1996 So it's kind of an interesting place. It was really his last Action movie of the kind of a of the his run that he had from the 80s to the night You know late 90 mid mid to late 90s true lies.

[00:12:59] I went in [00:13:00] thinking I'm gonna love this like what it's Arnold. It's mid 90s It's like right in his prime. It's Cameron like what it's in his prime seemingly like how what could go wrong? And like Phil said I didn't know what the hell I was watching for like an hour I'm like, what is this a romance? Is this a comedy?

[00:13:16] Is this? didn't know, like, is this James Bond? I just could not figure out what was going on exactly. And that was my major struggle with it, was that I feel like it just had a significant identity issue, like it had no idea what it was. That's not to say it wasn't fun at times, and I, of course I enjoyed it, and I think that Cameron pulled a lot out of it.

[00:13:35] Arnold. You know, like I think he probably delivered one of his better acting roles that he's ever delivered. Same with Jamie Lee. I thought she was actually, I went in expecting to hate her for whatever reason. I don't know why. I just write her off. But she was fantastic. Amazing. And it really, she was kind of asked to.

[00:13:50] Like, do a lot, you know, she had to be kind of this like, like very demure, like almost taking advantage of housewife and this like stuffy [00:14:00] office employee. And like, then she had to do kind of the tawdry, like slutty thing. And like, she just, she was, I feel like she was asked to do a lot and she pulled it off.

[00:14:08] Like I thought she did a really nice job. And then eraser, I went in thinking this is going to be absolute s**t. And I'll be honest, guys. I enjoyed it. I thought it was a blast. I'm right there with you. I know it's no piece of, you know, cinema history, but it was kind of like, it felt like it should have come out in like 1989.

[00:14:27] It was 96. I like how it tried to work in some of the new tech. It was asking, you know, Arnold to sort of be like macho eighties guy, but also sort of like Jason Bourne or something like in the future. Like it did. So there was some weird issues there and it struggled to kind of know what it was as well.

[00:14:42] And that's sort of my main beef with both of these issues and probably the most Similar thread is that the identity problems that they both have but I had a blast with both of them And I'm glad that we paired him up. Love it. Glad we made the audible We could be talking about Brad Jelena right now and I'd be like Well, when Brad looked at her across the [00:15:00] table, that was just some premier acting Tried to kill each other and beat the s**t out of each other and then they made out like an hour Yeah, and Brad was like weren't you in Tomb Raider?

[00:15:08] That's how real relationships is your John voice daughter, John Vaughn. These two movies were really interesting watches. You know, obviously like I feel like the Arnold thing covers a multitude of sins. Like at this point in retrospect, Arnold is kind of this national treasure of a human being. There's a lot of love for him overall and he's done a great job of like maintaining his image over the years and uh, but man, uh, I went into true lies.

[00:15:34] I, I had never seen it and I, I didn't do any reading about it beforehand so I wasn't really sure what I was getting into. We had paired up True Lies vs. Mr. and Mrs. Smith initially because they were both these like couple's action comedy things. So I kind of like knew that True Lies was comedic in nature in a way, but then I start watching it and I'm like, I feel like this movie's really trying to take itself seriously and then some time passes and then I'm like, maybe it doesn't take itself very seriously and then, [00:16:00] so like, it was, like Drew said.

[00:16:02] Total identity crisis and the movie is never sure what it is at the end of the day. I ended up really enjoying it. It was just a weird ass movie that I just liked. I got no explanation for it. And apparently a lot of you guys preferred it to, you know, y'all listeners out there. Eraser was, was so stupid.

[00:16:19] Had your boy James Kahn. It was so good, but so dumb at the same time. Like everything about it. Like, and once again, Drew put it really well. Like it was an. 80s film that happened to be made in the mid to late 90s. Oh, yeah. And it just didn't missed it by like a decade. It didn't fit in that ethos of what was going on at the time.

[00:16:38] So it and even today you're watching it. It's just kind of like I don't know where it slots into like film timeline or anything, but like it came out the same week as Mission Impossible. Yeah, the same summer, at least. Yeah. Like just another bizarre Arnold film, like similar to what I think Chase. Uh, our, the, the listener said, it, the CGI was terrible.

[00:16:58] I feel like they could have done a [00:17:00] lot better at the time because, what is it, Armageddon came out two years later and that movie still looks unbelievable. Like, they, they had the capability and they just didn't make it happen. So, it, it looked really weird. Um, it had cheesy, cheesy, like, forced feeling, emotional moments.

[00:17:14] Like the quote that I used at the beginning, you know, like nothing about it made a whole lot of sense, but it was still like a lot of fun to watch. And these two movies, they were just bizarre. The plot is absolutely insane too. It's insane. It was just like, like when James Conn rushes in and like kills that woman, Oh, the twists are very like on the nose.

[00:17:32] Like now this is a plot twist. I still was unsure of what, like, was he, he was trying to throw them. Off, or make, get Arnold to move Vanessa Williams, yeah, he was trying to, I think he was killing her so that Arnold would be like, Oh, we gotta move her, they're on to us, or something, but like, I don't know, it just, it really didn't add up for me.

[00:17:51] Lee. They were both kind of funny films that I was never sure if they were taking themselves too seriously or not, and they both had weird comedic elements. Like Drew said, Massive [00:18:00] identity crisis going on from top to bottom. And to me, I feel like I can look past that. I still enjoyed both of them thoroughly.

[00:18:06] I absolutely love True Lies. Eraser was bizarre. Um, the other funny thing about Eraser is I'd never seen it prior to watching it for this podcast. But I have the clearest memory of going to this video store we used to go to when I was a kid. Um, it's called Video Tracks in Miami. It's right near Miami Dade Community College.

[00:18:23] They probably would have given steroids to athletes in the back. Oh, 100%. Oh yeah. Um, and I remember that poster being up on the glass for like months. Yeah, and I just remember looking at it being like one day I'm gonna be old enough to go rent that movie on my own and my dad can't say anything about it And look at you now.

[00:18:40] He can't stop me. Now you're talking about it on a podcast. Look at me now dad! Such a big boy. I have the clearest memory of that. Poster and Arnold on the front and just thinking like, do you eraser? What does that mean? You know? So, yeah. Here's the thing though. I would watch it again. Oh yeah. Oh, totally. I had a blast.

[00:18:55] Oh yeah. Also the dude in, in the van. Congratulations. You've been [00:19:00] erased. You know that whole thing? Mm-Hmm, . So that was that movie. They were both funny and didn't know it. I don't know. I don't know the f*** I'm saying. Yeah, I think, I think, yeah, and I, I feel very similar. I feel like eraser is unfairly maligned.

[00:19:10] I do think. Eraser is underrated and I think True Lies is over it. Hot take. Eraser flows much better than True Lies does. There's just a more even flow. I felt like the plot, I could comprehend it. I also felt like James Caan solidified it, um, as an actor. I loved having him in the Arnold, uh, universe. You know, having him counter, like, one of the world's greatest actors has been in the greatest films.

[00:19:36] He was in the Godfather, and this dude has just done such amazing things. Having him kind of counter to Arnold as a villain was really fun for me. Um, you know, in true lies, again, as a diehard James Cameron fan and a diehard Arnold fan, I thought it was both of their, one of their most uneven entries. And I just Totally agree.

[00:19:54] The identity crisis that you spoke to, Phil, at one point I'm like, is this a Bond knockoff? Is this giving, [00:20:00] giving cadence to the spy genre? And then, but it, they couldn't help it, but get to the big Arnold action at the end. They eventually got there and it's like, it's because I don't think James Cameron can let himself not do the most.

[00:20:11] Uh, expressed big version of whatever the thing he's doing. Whatever he does has to be big. That's so true. It did feel kind of like a Bond knockoff. And it, uh, it almost, and that actually makes sense because there was sort of a, a break. You know, it was, it was after the last good Bond and it was sort of like pre Pierce Brosnan.

[00:20:27] And it, it just like, there was a hunger for that type of film, but it was Arnold the right guy for that movie. You know, cause Tom Cruise did Mission Impossible that same year. I have to feel like. Even like a Keanu or a Bruce Willis or like one of those would have fit better in this like spy thriller kind of thing.

[00:20:44] Yeah, yeah. And we got the bowtie. You're the very first thing you're seeing is him in a bowtie and a tux and he's doing the tango. He's undercover. He's in Russia. Yes. You know. Very vintage Bondi. Stuff. Yeah, it definitely felt like that for sure. Whereas eraser, it's more even, and [00:21:00] it, it's very clear to me more so on what it is because like we, like we said earlier, like there were points where I was like, I felt like that, like the parachute, I felt like I was point break.

[00:21:07] You, you pointed at a scene. It was like, that felt kinda like die hard. I saw a scene where it felt a little bit like Robocop. Um, you know, and, and uh, you know, both, both of these films suffer though because the big through line for these movies, even though we got rid of the through line with Mr. And Mrs.

[00:21:20] Smith, the through line here is they both work for these kind of ominous. ambiguous organizations that are like government organizations, but they have their own office. They're not really like, well, does the white house know about this? You know, it's like, it's, you're not exactly sure how they align with the government, but they do.

[00:21:35] Oh dude. Yeah. The ambiguity behind John careers, pseudo us Marshall position, like where he goes into some f***ing bunker. It's like that kind of s**t. It's, that's where you're like, I don't know. It's also just Arnold as a us Marshall. Yes, exactly. Do we buy that? It's a little bit like. Super soldier, maybe, but like, he's just, he's in the military.

[00:21:54] Tommy Lee Jones is a f***ing us marshal. Okay. There [00:22:00] was only one us marshal in Hollywood and that's Tommy Lee f***ing Jones. God, that makes me want to watch the fugitive again. Us marshals is a really fun movie. Yeah. How have we never covered that? Well, that's a great. That's a sequel to, to yeah. Wasn't there a horse riding scene in John Wick?

[00:22:19] I was getting John Wick vibes. In John Wick 3 or 2? I was getting some Wick vibes from the horse, I wonder if that was sort of an inspiration. It was 2 or 3 where he rode the horse, I can't remember but yeah. Like I said earlier, I realized that the charm of Arnold to me really exists in some of those older movies where he's kind of coming into his own.

[00:22:34] Um, you know, I just love that early work and as he got closer to political aspirations I feel like The film making suffered a little, he was almost too polished, but he also had gotten a little obsessed with the idea of comedy too, you know, he had taken on one of the great comedians, I'm trying to remember who he talks about in the book, but he's one of the great one liner comedians, as a mentor, and he like trained him on comedy, and he was really Oh, is this Stephen Wright?

[00:22:54] It wasn't Stephen Wright, no, it was um, it was one of the old one liners, I'm talking like punchlines from 60s, [00:23:00] 70s guys. Oh God. Yeah. Um, I can't remember. If I said the name and remembered it, you would be like, Oh, that guy. But you know, he, he had such an interest in comedy and, and before this he had twins and junior going into a racer.

[00:23:11] Like he had done kindergarten cop, he had done some pure comedies. And so there is a little identity crisis here. Like, is this movie funny? Is it, if it is a comedy, it's not a great one. If it's not an action film or if it is an action film, it's not a great one. Yeah. And so it, it, it. Both of these films suffer a little from not exactly having a home, but I would say Eraser controversially, and people will think it's controversial, is a little more solidified as a better flow.

[00:23:33] I, I think also these movies kind of suffer in retrospect because they're kind of cheesy and, and it's, I didn't see them in the 90s, so it's like, were they cheesy in the 90s? I don't really know, but all I remember is like when I was a kid. My friend's parents, I just remember there being a lot of conversations around True Lies and them talking about how amazing it was.

[00:23:54] And this was kind of like this universal conversation that I picked up going on around me as a kid. [00:24:00] Eraser, I don't remember so much, but I do remember that poster. It is a cool poster. Yeah. Isn't it funny the things you Pick up from the zeitgeist when you're a kid. Yeah, exactly. Like, that stuff's going on around you.

[00:24:09] And what's interesting is I can't wait to hear like what my kid thinks, like what she picked up on. She's like, Oh, I remember that. And it's going to be this clear memory to us, but some foggy, like Oppenheimer, that's right. I saw that poster. The most terrifying, depressing movie of all time. The best Bob maker ever.

[00:24:23] Yeah. So, yeah, like, it, I don't know where I was going with that. But anyway, in retrospect, these movies feel really cheesy, but I just wonder how they felt in the time. So they kind of suffer from how far we've come as a, you know, filmmaking, film watching public. Well, I think the 90s, they were, they were ready to say, to bid adieu to the, to the Arnold sly 80s stuff.

[00:24:46] I do think. I would agree. I think it had, it had been an amazing thing and it kind of, it kind of hit its, I mean, James Cameron had moved on. Think about it. How, how long before after true lies, as you go to Titanic, I mean, an avatar, that dude flipped a switch. He was done with the [00:25:00] Arnold game. I mean, true lies is done.

[00:25:01] He's like, I'm going down and going under the ocean. Yeah. Going to the bottom again, because he had just done abyss. Oh yeah. I did a bit, but this time we're going to do abyss. We're for real going to the bottom. You know, there's no aliens down here. We're going to go to that f***ing ship. This lady, or this time the lady's not, Coming up for air.

[00:25:16] We're gonna have some young actor who's up and coming, he's gonna freeze on a big door. True Randos. It's been too long since I said that word, Randos, it really rolls off the tongue. True Randos. Here we go. Tom Arnold. James Cameron loved him so much that he threatened Fox to take this movie to a different studio because they didn't want him because his recent, his, he had a lot of issues in the public eye.

[00:25:41] He was addicted to coke. He had a really crazy marriage with Roseanne that broke up. I don't know if you guys remember, but they both tattooed each other's faces on their ass. Imagine being married to Roseanne. I know. And so he was actually the lead writer on Roseanne, and then they had this crazy public tumultuous divorce, and he's hooked on coke, and he had a really bad public [00:26:00] reputation.

[00:26:00] But James Cameron said he brought him in for his audition, and he was so good, he blew him away. When the studio said they didn't want him for all those tumultuous reasons, he said I'll take this movie to a different studio. Arnold also loved him. He loved playing across from him. And also, I think it took a little bit of the pressure off Arnold to have these, both of these movies.

[00:26:18] The comedic relief comes from elsewhere. He, he offers some of it, but there's a ton of other comic relief. I mean, hell, usually Bill Paxton does it, but in True Lies we got Bill Paxton and we got Tom Arnold bringing the comedy. So there's, there was a lot that Arnold didn't have to do from that perspective.

[00:26:32] And I think, I think Tom Arnold is actually a huge bright spot. At first, he was a little annoying, but I kind of warmed up to it. And then I loved his, I loved his commentary throughout the film. You know, it's interesting you mentioned that because I think you just pinpointed some, uh, one of the problems I had with it.

[00:26:45] I didn't think that either of those. Comedic roles really came across very well. Yeah, I thought bill paxton was trying he was dialed up to like 12 and a half Like on a scale from 1 to 10. Yeah 12 and a half. It's like dude. What are you doing? Like I and i'm a [00:27:00] paxton guy. Yeah, I love his stuff but bill paxton it was like almost insufferable some of the some of the like when he was in the car and like, you know, She's got a pair of tits make it that'll make you like stand up and beg for buttermilk What are we taught?

[00:27:14] Like it was just like So well intense and like yeah too much for no reason really for no yes also something that is very observable in both of these films and I was this probably won't make it to the final cut but um they were both really chauvinistic oh yeah totally true lies true lies was derided as a misogynistic film like they were so f***ing chauvinistic I was watching these and I was like Damn, man.

[00:27:39] Like, how did these get made? Um, how they keep calling Vanessa Williams sweetheart in the movie. Like, back then, that was probably nothing but like, Okay, sweetheart, put the disc in the computer. Okay, sweetheart. And that, I mean, like, that kind of language these days just wouldn't fly. And maybe it's just, you know, the Society pounds it into you enough and you get like a little sensitive to it.

[00:27:58] God, like the whole [00:28:00] joke about the tits and the buttermilk. Like I go, nobody would ever say that. I was like, yeah, it made me just really uncomfortable. Like you drill drill, like a drill. I am a Bill Paxson guy. If he was talking, I was cringing. Another thing about packs into is he had been a side guy in so many camera movies.

[00:28:17] He's the annoying guy and aliens annoying meant intentionally. We all love him, but he was the annoying guy. and aliens. He's the first guy that gets killed by the terminator in 1984. Like, he's always been Cameron's pocket guy. He's like his pocket ace. It's like, I got this weird little side role. Let's put Pax in there.

[00:28:31] Yeah. After this, he starts to take on star roles. So I think he was in the middle of this transition. Think about it compared to other movies he's been in that we've reviewed up to this point. He had a lot of lines. His character was larger than life. Like he had a lot of screen time. He then transitioned.

[00:28:44] He did frailty with Matthew McConaughey where he was taken on lead roles. And I do think he was in a little bit of transition. That being said, I don't care, very, and I'm, I'm a comedian, a failed comedian at that, but I was made very uncomfortable by this, the line you mentioned, like I hated everything his character was saying.

[00:28:59] Also, the scene [00:29:00] when he was like, when Arnold's test driving the car or whatever, like why the f*** wasn't Arnold driving the car? He's trying to sell this car to this guy and Arnold's in the passenger seat just like glaring at him. I want to know what it's like to be a passenger. Why is the salesman driving the car?

[00:29:13] Can you take me for a test ride? I want to know what it's like to be a passenger in this car. I want to know what it feels like if my friend bought this car and he was picking me up to go to Chili's. How did that get past him? I don't know. Yeah, I may, I don't know. That is a funny thing. I don't know.

[00:29:30] Maybe, maybe it was to give him a sense of control, but it was probably just an oversight. Rando, true Rando. Nger actually almost died during the horse scene. There was a point where the, he was actually, so there is the infamous scene where you can obviously see it's a stunt man. Yes. Um, but he also, he does ride the horse in some scenes.

[00:29:46] I think he grew in a documentary. He's riding horses in the, in the documentary in Austria has pet horses. Yeah. Pet Horse. He still has Pet, pet horses, whiskey and whatever. What's the other one's name? Whiskey Tango Sour. Yes. Whiskey, sour Whiskey. Old Fashioned . Um. [00:30:00] The, the horse got spooked out by a camera boom and stood up in the air and on one side is the ground, but on the other side is a 90 foot drop off and Arnold just so happened to be able to angle his body to where he fell on the ground, but if he would have gone the other way, he would have fallen 90 feet.

[00:30:16] Oh my god. At least he said it was 90 feet. Dude, the number of celebrities that have, like, been injured in horse incidences and things. Yeah, I don't trust horses. I know everyone loves them. I mean, Christopher Reeves, man, like, literally ended everything for them. Well, they're very big, and they're very jumpy, so Yes, they are.

[00:30:32] I know. They got great, great leg muscles. Glad we have cars now, so we can kill each other with six You know, 6, 000 pound pieces of metal instead of horses. I just finished reading It's way better that way. I actually just finished reading All the Pretty Horses again by Cormac McCarthy. I just read it for the second time.

[00:30:46] Yeah, because he died. So, but anyway, side effect. Hey, Cormac McCarthy died three weeks ago and I'm still recovering. Nobody cares. He's a top three writer for me. Speaking of almost dying, Jamie Lee Curtis It was her birthday on the day they [00:31:00] did the helicopter scene, and she did that stunt herself. She was the one dangling off the side of the helicopter.

[00:31:04] She wanted to do that. That's some Tom Cruise s**t right there, Jamie. It was. I just can't say enough. That scene was pretty cool, I thought. Yeah. Oh, it was great. The movie picks up there, and I can't say enough great things. Jamie Lee Curtis really, you know, she kind of suffered for being a genre actress.

[00:31:16] You know, she's known for Halloween and a bunch of other failed films. She has a long ass torso. She crushed this movie. Crushed it. I loved it. I don't know why I'm talking like this. Crushed it. So, but anyway, on her birthday, she did the Halloween stunt. No, the helicopter stunt. There's definitely someone listening out there that was like, Man, my bro in the f***ing frat house used to talk like that.

[00:31:36] I miss that guy. There's also some people that just turned it off. Yeah. What the f*** is this guy? He used to do keggerades. Yeah, he used to do keg stands, that was, he did his own stunts too, he drank all the beer. Yeah. This is weird, Jodie Foster could have played that role. Jodie would never take that role.

[00:31:49] No. Oh, I don't know, she would do a Cameron movie, probably. I don't know if she'd do the dancing part, and, and, but she also opted for a different movie called Nell, which didn't do as well, but Nell was like a film about, she played a [00:32:00] woman that was trapped in the woods, or grew up in the woods and didn't speak English, and had her own language.

[00:32:05] Yeah, she opted for that instead. Spoke tree sound. Yeah, she speaks, her language is leaves rustling.

[00:32:15] And lastly, true lies true randos. The jets, they used three fighter jets. Real government issued jets. Um, and the total cost was over $100,000 to use these three jets to hire the pilots too. That's, do you wanna guess what the hourly, hourly rate was though? Probably a couple grand an hour. $2,400 an hour.

[00:32:32] Yeah. To rent out military jets for the movie Irans Erase Ordo. Gather my still doing that voice thing. I know. I'm so weird today. It's like I'm uncomfortable with myself. It's like we haven't done this in a while. I know it has been a while Eraser as much kind of dissing it got from critics at the time.

[00:32:50] It had a legendary writer Uh who didn't get credit jane or john milius did an uncredited right on eraser the guy that wrote apocalypse now [00:33:00] jaws He has an uncredited writing thing here. He also wrote Shawshank Redemption. That was an Arnold request, right? No, I don't think it was an Ar Was it? May have been.

[00:33:08] I think that's, I read, read or heard that somewhere. They also had Frank Darabont come in. On what? To do a write. He also helped with a rewrite. So there's a No f***ing way. That's probably why that movie's cheesy as f***. And they were rewriting, they were rewriting this movie, not only up until the point they kicked off production, but after production, they were rewriting the script, and it was, it was constantly undercut.

[00:33:26] I feel like everything Frank Darabont touches starts off okay, and then just nosedives was awesome. Yeah, it was good. Nevermind, I repent. I forget the guy's name, but he was working at the gay bar in that movie. He was freaking hilarious. Yes. And there was some really good writing for him. He was hilarious.

[00:33:43] The Italian, the mobster. He was so funny. I loved that they just doubled down on the extreme mob tropes in that one. Like, they weren't even trying to hide it. I made a mistake. It wasn't Frank Darabont who directed Speed. It was Jan de Bont. Oh, they're very different people. Stupid me. I knew I was wrong and I looked it up.

[00:33:59] One of my [00:34:00] favorite Kyle quote, it's not f***ing yo Deon, it's f***ing Yoon, Deon . Oh, wait, what? It was from the speed episode. He messes up at one point and he's like, and you know, Yoon Deba. And he goes, f***ing Yo Deon. I left it in the episode because it was just great. This is one of the craziest randos that I've ever found for the podcast before a racer was made.

[00:34:20] Uh, if you recall, Carol Coe that did all the great movies. that did all the Rambo movies, RoboCop. They were known as this entity, Total Recall. They would, they would give huge budgets to people like Paul Verhoeven to let them execute their vision. They wanted, they wanted creative action films. They wanted directors to fulfill their vision.

[00:34:37] So they gave them huge budgets. Well, this is around the time they were on the nosedive and they were starting to become, you know, start to go bankrupt. At the time, before Eraser, Arnold was entertaining doing a movie called Crusade. Originally it was attached to Martin Scorsese, but it did end up being a Paul Verhoeven movie, but Carol Co.

[00:34:54] turned it around, turned it down, because at minimum it was a 100 million budget, and Paul Verhoeven's never met budget, he's [00:35:00] always gone over, and they knew that would They eventually sank anyway, they knew if they took it on, but Arnold was gonna do a three hour epic film playing a knight that was in the Crusades trying to take the land back from the Muslims.

[00:35:10] So, that was in play. We could have had a movie. This guy says he was gonna do it. Yeah, originally and then Vorhofen. Oh, I would've loved to have seen that. Yeah, so. It would've been really weird. It would've been. Yeah. Apparently, it was. over the top violent, over the top. How would he have shuffled his mother into that movie or whatever he always did in his films, right?

[00:35:28] Who, Scorsese? Yeah, like when Scorsese uses his mom, it's like, oh, his mom's like, you know, serving. You can find the script online. The script is out there. Another big reason, not only did he turn it down, because It just wasn't going to work anyway, but he knew that if he did a movie about the Crusades and he wanted to go for election, he knew that would ruin it.

[00:35:46] Because apparently if you read the script That was my first thought. There's a scene where he rips a guy's beard off and his whole face comes off with it. Like it's like vulgar, over the top violence. And he was like, I love dudes. That was going to be an Oscar Beatty kind of thing. That's not something that's going to get you elected.[00:36:00] 

[00:36:00] But don't you kind of want to see it now that you know, it's out there? Yes, I do. Martin, I mean, he's too old now. And what the hell is Verhoeven doing now? Anyway, after he made showgirls, no one ever gave him money again. Anyway, yeah, he is, but he's doing independent films overseas. He's he doesn't even live here anymore.

[00:36:14] He's this is funny. The original name of the central defense contractor was Cyrex, but there was a real company called Cyrex and they. Sued the production company and said, if you don't change it, we are going to sue you. So that's why it's Cyrez and not Cyrex. Wow. Yeah, there was a real company called Cyrex.

[00:36:29] Maybe it was the Mortal Kombat guy. Cyrex. Yeah, Cyrex. Maybe he got pissed off. You know, is he, is he, is he the red one? He's the yellow one. He's Sektor is the red one. Sektor is the, yeah. Sektor. So Cyrex is the, the yellow one, yeah. I knew you would know that. How did they know about that in pre production? I don't know.

[00:36:44] Maybe someone told them, did you hear that f***er James Cameron's making a movie about our company? He's like, dude, we make fertilizer. Why do you want to make a movie about a fertilizer company? I don't know, that's weird. We make defense fertilizer. Hire Jim. Who's Jim? My cousin, the lawyer. He lives in the Bronx.

[00:36:56] We are almost done with these ra ra [00:37:00] randos. Yes. This is almost Taxi Driver level. It's the normal. It's five each. Really? That's the normal. We spitballed for a while. We did spitball. 44 minutes. We spitballed So the part of the film's production involved filming at a real zoo, and a large number of real animals had to be shipped in.

[00:37:15] It was gonna be a great cost to the film's budget, which was 100 million dollars, which is funny, that was the same as True Lies, and at the time, True Lies, that was the biggest budget ever. Now it's just like, eh, nickelback. What? This is horrible. I mean, f*** this rando. I don't want to do it anymore. What is it?

[00:37:28] Eh, Nickelback! Future Phil, I'm an idiot right now. This is kind of a rando, but I wanted to bring this in because I did research on this because I was really curious about it. Eraser is really considered to be the end of the golden Arnold era. It's, it's, and I only bring it up to say we're all diehard Arnold fans here, you know how I feel about them.

[00:37:47] Uh, and I love what you said, Phil, that it felt like it should've come out in 89, you kinda said this too, Drew. It should've come out in 89, but it was in 96, that this genre had passed by, people were done with it, I think the misogyny of those [00:38:00] Eraser is a lot like Commando. Commando is him taking a woman and protecting her and she's falling.

[00:38:04] Like, it's very similar. And I do think the genre kind of burnt out a little bit. But this was a 19 film skid between Conan in 1982 and 1996 Eraser. To think about how it covered that much time. And so a lot of people say that this is kind of the end of that era. And do you really include Conan in that?

[00:38:21] It wasn't even his voice. Like, I just feel like Conan, his body, that was like part of his bodybuilding career. Part of me doesn't, but in my research, like film people, writers, you know, critics do. I, they, they consider that to be the golden Arnold era. I don't personally, cause I don't necessarily love that film as much, but I mean, even if he started in 84, that was 82, Conan, it feels like it started with Terminator.

[00:38:42] Yeah, 84. Even if we, okay, so we'll start. And then it ended with Eraser. Either way you look at it, it's a long time. I think it's interesting what people, what a lot of people say, and I actually agree Those movies were like the beginning of a new type of action. Michael Bay, these new directors coming in with bigger set pieces, crazier ideas.

[00:38:59] And [00:39:00] so it is interesting. So it's kind of random, but I just wanted to mention that, you know, scholastically speaking, this is kind of the end. Kind of sad. Yeah. Cause next he did what was next end of days, which is kind of a horror thing, right? And yeah, he fights. And it was his first movie after his heart surgery.

[00:39:14] Yeah, so he really kind of did a weird thing and then he went and became governor. You tried to take me, Satan, I fight you back. I can't do the f***ing impression, you do it. Uh, what? I've never seen that movie. Oh, it's horrible. End of days. Gabriel Byrne plays the devil. End of days. Okay, wow. Korn are on the soundtrack.

[00:39:29] It's fun. Oh, wow. It's horrible. It's a Korn and Limp Bizkit. I would watch it right now. I feel like we're gonna watch it next time we hang out. Yeah, yeah. End of podcast, we'll watch End of Days. Next time Phil can't get together, we'll be like, End of Days? Shall we parse the lies? Let's erase or, erase war.

[00:39:47] Let's true, let's tell the truth, let's war. It feels so good to be here again. I have missed you guys. I have missed your desperate attempts at making wordplay. I know, me too. We are not good at it. Drew is good at [00:40:00] it. Thank God I'm not the host though. But you know what else I missed? You gotta get that iPad out to get that casket!

[00:40:05] Going, if you don't do that top bill cash, we can't commence on the scorecard. If we can't commence on the war card, the podcast will never end. And we're using open source software to record because s**t, he left his IKEA at home. What the f*** did you, I'm sorry, did you say Ikea in there somewhere? Ikea, he left his cheap couch at home.

[00:40:20] Can you keep going while he get this lady? He made about three kid that's three years old and they're the same people making the MacBooks and the iPads and the iPods and they just come in here and they create open source software for podcasters that make zero money in this f***ing country. 'cause it's the most.

[00:40:35] a thing to happen since they found out about bread and they opened all the factories there was a huge boom but then remember during 1942 during world war ii when they closed down all the bread making factories they started making bombs for the d. i. a so they could bomb other countries and we could use elicited drug money to fund terrorism around the world do you remember this motherf***ers wow yes i do the sheer amount of verbiage [00:41:00] Falling out of your face is impressive.

[00:41:01] I'm ready, by the way. All right, I'm gonna take creative liberty here and say, Top Bill cast! Arnold Schwarzenegger vs. Arnold Schwarzenegger! Booyah! God, who do we pick? This is the first time we've done it. We've never compared the two leading actors against each other, have we? No. And it only, and I'm trying to think, there was a movie where We had an actor that was in both movies, but Oh, Rounders and Rounders and Ocean's Eleven, because Matt Damon was in both.

[00:41:28] Rounders! Okay, but it didn't work itself out to be Top Bill. Right, exactly. You know, somehow, I should have been anticipating this, and I wasn't. Mostly because I'm a Arnie in True Lies versus Arnie in Eraser. It's tough. I could go either way, but I feel like I know how Kyle's going to go on this one because he has a bizarre dislike for Arnold in True Lies because he's too polished, but You know me so well.

[00:41:53] He's too polished. Only I would complain about that s**t. I really thought Arnold in True Lies was [00:42:00] The fullest realization of Arnold that we could possibly get as stupid as that movie was in so many ways and as bizarre as as as like Ambiguous as the comedic slash seriousness of that movie was I thought he was really great in true lies He I mean as good as a guy who has an extremely heavy Austrian accent could possibly be playing like a role that Could have easily been played by a purely American actor.

[00:42:25] As good as that type of actor could be, I thought he crushed it in True Lies. I thought his polished nature was very becoming. And I, I, I don't know. I just really enjoyed him in that movie. He was funny. He was as believable, I guess, as you could be. You know, he had a lot of really great moments in that movie.

[00:42:40] Eraser, I felt like you could have swapped out a lot of different people for Arnold because it wasn't like an iconic film and it was. It was good, but it wasn't like, I don't know that Arnold made that movie as much as Arnold made True Lies, so I'll take T. L. Arnold vs. Eraser Arnold. And you're not alone in that sentiment.

[00:42:55] Drewskies. I don't want to see Arnold sitting by a fireplace talking to a woman. [00:43:00] I don't even want to see him I do. Sitting, ever. I don't want to see him riding a horse at a Marriott. I want to see Arnold In an airplane, throwing a chair out to kill the engine so he can jump out, miss the engine, deploy a thing, it not work, find the backup, and then take on an airplane.

[00:43:18] Yes. Sure enough. That's what I want from Arnold. And for that reason, I'm going Eraser. I love that. Very much truth. I love that. Oh, this is. Oh, don't even play. You're going to go Eraser here. Come on. I don't love that he started changing his roles and his acting because he had political aspirations, especially because we've read the book.

[00:43:36] Watch the documentary, we know how it negatively impacted his marriage and his life, like, I just hate that, I hate that. As amazing as it is, is he became governor. I just feel like Terminator 3, like, he was, that was the same thing. Terminator 3 is supposedly the one that suffered the most. You know, he, that was really close to his political aspirations, and he totally audited himself.

[00:43:53] I just hate that. But, what Drew said resonates with me. Eraser, I feel like it had more traditional Arnold [00:44:00] type stuff. He's holding two railguns where these other guys can barely handle one. Oh, there's some serious Predator Terminator vibes. Yes! I was gonna say the same thing. I was watching Eraser and there were so many moments where I was like, Terminator, Terminator, Terminator.

[00:44:13] Like, it just, it felt like some kind of bizarre, adjacent Yeah, or just like a, an adjacent universe kind of thing, you know, like where he could have been the Terminator. And, and also he plays a very Terminator like role in that movie because he's the Eraser. He goes in and f***ing terminates people, literally.

[00:44:30] Honestly, it was less like Eraser than it sounded like it would be. If you just saw the poster, you're like, Eraser! You're like, oh, so it's The Terminator thing. Yeah, it's about, it's a movie about school supplies. But no, he, um. Yeah, the pencil is gone. How can I write with the number two pencil if it doesn't have an eraser on the bottom?

[00:44:47] I will make mistakes. English is not my first language. The Scantron form is gonna f*** me over when I My muscles are too big for these bubbles. That's so good. Run it again! Run it again, I got the right answer. I need a [00:45:00] 920 on my SATs. Or else James Cameron won't let me run for president. Ha ha ha ha! The eraser had a lot of Terminator adjacent things going on.

[00:45:09] I buy him a lot more in a racer. There is no one's going to hire a spy that's built like Arnold, even though Arnold is in his low form, low muscle. Arnold is still incredibly muscular compared to the rest of us. Like low, like non bodybuilder. Arnold is still amazing. And no one's going to buy him as a spy.

[00:45:25] Big motherf***er. You put that guy in a tuxedo. He's not nondescript. People are going to be looking like, who's that big guy in the six foot. He's not, he's actually not that tall. He's 6'2 I think he's 6'2 supposedly. Wow, that's way shorter than I thought. The eraser actually was a little more close to what I love about him.

[00:45:42] And, and I do, I just didn't buy him as much as a spy. I go eraser. It's weird, it's honestly kind of weird that True Lies exists. I could see someone be like, Did you know that James Cameron made a movie with Arnold Schwarzenegger one time? And it was kind of a comedy? And Jamie Lee Curtis from Halloween was Like his opposite role.

[00:45:57] Yeah. Well this is the third movie. Tom Arnold was in it and we're like, wait, [00:46:00] what? This is the third movie he's done with Arnold. Both Terminators. Oh, that's right. Damnit. Cut all that. . . f***. You said it earlier too. I was like, he's a Terminator. Was kind of a big deal, but damnit. I didn't say anything though.

[00:46:14] I was like, it'll come around. Oh man. And then he said it again. I was like, okay, you're f***ed. There's a reason we do this pod. And it's to laugh. It's to laugh, to laugh. It's like we can't remember all the s**t. We have 19 kids between the three of us. I mean, we are drowning here. Double the amount of kids since the last time you tuned in to this s**t.

[00:46:28] Yeah, we actually got adopted into a cult and they gave me four kids. I own the, the butter churning children, which has been great for me. I love butter. It's been, you know, the boss doesn't know that I'm siphoning a little bit, you know, but. I'm the head of the Branch Davidian compound here in Tennessee, so there you go.

[00:46:43] That's why they call you, they call me Kyle Resch, you know, instead of Core Resch, David Resch. They call me Kyle Resch. It's been great. Eraser is erasing. One to zero. Is True Lies telling the truth or is it lying? We will find out with Best Supporting Cast, man! Get your cowboy hat on, [00:47:00] get your alligator skin cowboy boots out, go to the desert, kick a cacti, and you put that supporting cast out there, man.

[00:47:06] Been too long since you had that iPad. World War II Oppenheimer, s**t, f***! Best Supporting Cast! Supporting Cast! Cut all that. Uh, True Lies, Jamie Lee Curtis, Tom Arnold, Bill Paxton, Tia Carrere, forgive my pronunciation. Tia Carrera. Carrera? Carrere? Carrera, yeah. Carrera. She's wonderful. Uh, in Eraser we have Vanessa Williams, James Kahn, James Coburn, and Robert.

[00:47:30] Pastorelli. Did you mention Charlton Heston in The True Lies? No, but yeah, I usually run it down. You gotta tag him on there. Let me run it down. We got Art Malik, we got Eliza Dushku, we got, uh, let's see, I don't recognize any of these people. Poor Eliza Dushku, that's a terrible last name. And True Lies? So, so beautiful.

[00:47:46] Such a s**tty last name. Charlton Heston's the boss. and true lies. He's the boss of the, the not even list. Oh yeah. He's at the end of the table there when they're like, yeah, he's having eyebrows with the eye patch. I'll start. This is tough. A young John Slattery. Oh yes. Still smoking. Our [00:48:00] friend from this is, he was, he was pre silver, but he was post gray.

[00:48:03] Like he had, did that do ever have brown hair? He like he was born with like gray hair. John Slattery was born at the age of 45. He is just amazing in that sense. Isn't he amazing in Mad Men? Much like John Hamm, he's just always 45. Yes, I, I struggled with this because on one hand, Jamie Lee Curtis, to me, as much as I love Arnold, she is true lies.

[00:48:24] I love how she transformed. This is kind of because Arnold's not super nuanced as an actor. I think it gets lost. I think a better actor could have portrayed this feeling more. But the real point of the story to me was, is that she fell in love with him, even though she found out he was lying. She fell in love with Spy Arnold because she was into that.

[00:48:39] That's why she fell for Bill Paxton. It's true. And because Arnold's not super nuanced as an actor, in fact this is his best acting he's done to date, but it's still not super nuanced, you can't really pick up on all that. But I thought she did so good, I love that she did her own stunts. Well said. Shed new light.

[00:48:53] I hadn't thought about it like that. Yeah. And she's, she was known as a genre actor, people, she did a couple of s**tty movies and people didn't really [00:49:00] ever get over her from Halloween. She really shows off here, and she did so well that originally Arnold, I didn't have this in my randos, she didn't, he didn't want her.

[00:49:07] She was not a worthy. opposite to play for him as a female in the movie. And by the end of it, he loved her so much that he shared Top Bill cast with her. Wow. And she says, remember in the Arnold documentary, she says that's one of the highlights of her career when Arnold, when Arnold said, you know what? I want to share, like, I want your name on the poster with mine.

[00:49:22] And that was a huge deal for her. The problem though with True Lies is not Jamie Lee Curtis. She carries this movie in a lot of ways. To me, there's malpractice with Bill Paxton here, who I love, who we love. We've loved him on this podcast. And rest in peace, the great Bill. But his character, and it's not his fault he's reading the lines that are meant for him, but he's It's just He's not good.

[00:49:40] On the other hand, I really loved James Caan playing opposite from Arnold. It's tough. One of the most legendary, again, rest in peace, James Caan, you're Mr. Godfather, you love that series, it means so much to you. Wasn't it great seeing him again and seeing him across from Arnold? It was, but it also kind of, I hate to say this.

[00:49:58] But the eraser [00:50:00] felt below James Conn. Yeah, I thought that a little. In a way. Of course, was Elf below James Conn? That's a fair question. That's a different question. Yeah, that's actually a really good point. He's not much different than De Niro in that way. They both, they both ended up take, you know, doing more.

[00:50:15] I, the whole time, every time James Conn was on screen, I'm like, you're better than this. But anyway. All that to say. I thought he waited it a little bit. Yeah, well he did, for sure. He kind of kept it in reality a juggernaut, yeah, I mean. But I also feel like they were in different movies at times. You know what I mean?

[00:50:31] Yeah, but I, I am seriously gonna go True Lies because I think Jamie Lee Curtis deserves so much credit. She just won her first Oscar this year for Everywhere, All at Once. It's about f***ing time, jeez. She was fantastic here and, uh, I think she's underrated. So, I, I give it True Lies, it's, strictly, I give Tar Mono credit from a comedic point of view, too.

[00:50:49] He was funny, but also somewhat annoying. He kinda got annoying to me a little bit, too. Jamie Lee Curtis gets the, gets the True Lies for me. What do you think, Drewskis? I'm torn. I, I think I have to go Eraser, [00:51:00] because I felt like the comedy in True Lies was so forced. It pulled me out. Oh man. Robert Past, is it Pastor Ellie?

[00:51:07] I'm sorry. He's, I'm he, I'm so glad you brought him up. You and I, so Drew and I watched, we've not talked enough about him. Yeah. Pastor Ellie. We watched a racer together and we were laughing our ass off him. I, we were laughing my butt off. And part of it is probably, I was sitting with a friend, you know, when you watch a movie with someone, you laugh more, but, but he stuck out to both of us.

[00:51:24] Uh, yeah. I turned to you at one point. I'm like, this guy is f***ing hilarious. He is what? He's the comedic relief. I mean, he's killin it. Do you guys wanna order pizza? Pfft. Ha ha ha ha! Sure! Gluten free? No. I mean, you can have your regular. Anyway. Yeah, I go with Racer Cause I love I thought he was hilarious I thought James Caan Even though, like, it felt like they were acting in different movies at times I thought he was Like, who doesn't love watching James Caan just, like, be James Caan?

[00:51:49] Vanessa Williams, she's beautiful and, and Married to the great Rick Fox? She's never bad, is she really? There she was during this time, they had four kids together. Oh, okay. Red Fox? Rick Fox, from the Lakers. Wow. [00:52:00] He played on those great Laker teams with Kobe and Robert Ori. Oh, wow. Yeah, and then you got James Cromwell, like, he was, he's kind of a legend in his own right, like, you know, not an A list survivor.

[00:52:08] This was a surprisingly difficult supporting cast. Yeah. I, I can't believe I'm going, I race her. For the second time in a row, but I think I just liked that movie more. You're betting on James Caan. No, I'm not. How could you, you can't go wrong betting on him at all. What do you think, Phil? Honestly, I'm gonna go True Lies.

[00:52:24] I really liked Jamie Lee Curtis. She played the, like, the demure, like, suppressed housewife thing really well. I also loved Dude, her awkward striptease thing was It was, like, so funny to me. She was obviously so uncomfortable. There was some real acting happening there. It was uncomfortable, but it was also like some real acting happening.

[00:52:43] I thought it was hilarious. And I honestly thought Tom Arnold, Tom Arnold was, I really generally don't like him, but I didn't mind him in this movie. Uh, he was fine. It, you know, I don't know. I, I liked, I liked the True Lies supporting cast a lot. Like, to [00:53:00] me, the True Lies supporting cast kind of made that movie.

[00:53:02] Both are surprisingly dense at the supporting level. They are, man! Like, there's some juggernauts in both of those. When I saw James Caan on Eraser, I was like, holy s**t. I know, yeah, it's kind of weird. They got Sonny here! Well, the truth is, Eraser is learning the truth behind the lies here, because it's tied.

[00:53:17] It had a slight lead, and now we are tied at one. Which pseudo secret, ambiguous organization would you rather work for? For Omega Counter Terror Sector, or WITSEC, if you are a spy or a U. S. Marshal. Oh man. Shopping your resume out to secret government organizations, who would you, who would you follow on LinkedIn?

[00:53:35] Oh my god. That's really difficult. Um, I feel like if they're both secret, they wouldn't be on LinkedIn. The Omega Super Secret soup, sauce, whatever the f***. Omega counter terror sector, I think, is what is official. That's what is on Charlton Heston's business card. Yeah, the U. S. Marshals are like a bizarrely underfunded branch of the U.

[00:53:55] S. government, and I don't know that I'd want to be even there, like, in their hyper [00:54:00] elite version of that, so I would go true lies. You wouldn't want to be an eraser? Yeah, erasing. They're calling me an eraser. Yeah, I just can't imagine, like, are they giving you enough money to really erase? Or are you just like getting like, you remember those s**tty, like, gummy erasers you'd get in school that just like kind of wouldn't do the job?

[00:54:14] The pointed like squid heads? Yeah, and they just kind of leave s**t on your paper and also the graphite and you'd be like, what the f*** was the point of this? Like, that's what I feel like you might get if you were part of the U. S. Marshals Service. If I'm gonna erase, I need resources. I can't just erase on a suestring budget.

[00:54:29] I need tools, people, a network. I need that gritty pumice eraser that just gets the job done. A railgun. I need all the s**t. A railgun, you said. So you want true lies. True lies. Alright, you want to be part of the Omega counter terror sector. What about you, Drewskies? When I was a kid, I had audio tapes. of Charlton Heston reading the Bible.

[00:54:48] Wow. Brought to you by the NRA. So he's like a father to me. Ha ha ha ha ha. He raised you. So, I have to go with the Omega Cops here. I also, that's funny. I did not know that. That is amazing. It's true. I also go [00:55:00] True Lies, but that's because WITSEC, man, get your s**t together. I mean, one of your lead guys is, is a mole, and the boss is so surprised.

[00:55:07] He's like, oh my gosh, I've known John for years. Half the damn company's a mole. I know. That's what I'm talking about, the underfunded thing. They're not getting paid enough. To not turn on America. I mean, James Caan, like, the minute he That's a great point. The minute James Caan decides to go rogue, and also, I have another rando pertaining to this, but the way they pack the railguns into the the into the thing.

[00:55:27] There's no boxes. You're just sitting there. No cases. Remember this, Drew? We pointed this out when the the the the boxcar falls. I'm like, those they're just they just pack the railguns in there. They don't need cases or styrofoam. Like, they just literally, like, what if they get to the Russian mob and they don't work?

[00:55:41] It's like, this railgun's broken. Can I get a refund? Do I who do I Sue UPS, the rail gun company. Who do I go after here? A rail gun. You said, what kind of operation is this? So I go true lies because I, I just, I can't imagine packing a rail gun that way. Yeah, it's so true. We need cases. I mean, look at the gun in true lies, Jamie Lee drops up that [00:56:00] machine gun on the stairwell and just happens to shoot, dude, dude, that scene.

[00:56:03] I feel like that was. scene I've ever seen in any movie ever. Like this is the dumbest thing, but I feel like that's why that's where that ambiguity of like, is it a comedy or isn't an action film? A serious action film jarringly shakes you from it. Yes, it does. Comedy. That's the crazy part. Oh my gosh. And that was a hundred percent.

[00:56:21] A stick zooming out to James Cameron one aside from the action and the legendary big set pieces and all the stuff he's known for. What else is he known for empowering? Super female leads. He is Sarah Connor. So he can marry them later and he does that here to the lady in the abyss. Yeah, and she has, hell, even the woman in Titanic survived on a piece of cardboard.

[00:56:42] I don't know if she killed Lee, but she said you get your ass to the bottom and then the, you know, that the submarine will come down later. Yeah, she really does, he really does elevate women. Don't misgender him. And Helen, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, she does transform here, but this seems like a super like, ditzy thing to do.

[00:56:59] It was [00:57:00] just weird to me that, that this was added, and it was added for comedic relief, but usually he's empowering his female leads. Here he's doing the same eventually, but this seems like, like, can you imagine Ripley dropping a gun accidentally and laughing that she's killing aliens on accident? No. Or Sarah Connor.

[00:57:15] Yeah, the whole thing is off brand for everybody. Yeah, everybody had food poisoning or something. I don't know what happened, but I do go true lies. So, Eraser is learning the truth here. At two to one, here we go. Category three, or uh, category four. What's more believable? Simon slash Bill Paxton as a spy, or the railguns being jammed into a container with no cases, boxes, or styrofoam, or protection of any sort?

[00:57:38] by, you know, by this gigantic secret government organization. I'm obviously very off put by the packing of these railguns. There's a clear answer here. It's shockingly believable that somebody would just put a bunch of really expensive weapons in a shipping container and be like, here you go, you're a f***ing problem now, you know?

[00:57:56] When that car opens and they just fall out, I was like, [00:58:00] really? Yeah, it's like as much as you'd think that that wouldn't be that way. We've all been around long enough to see the, like 24 inch by 48 inch Amazon box show up with a f***ing tiny ass vial of, of lube in it. And you're like, you guys put this two ounce bottle of liquid in like a four square foot box.

[00:58:23] The f*** is wrong with you people. So anyway, in our first five episodes of this podcast. If the government opened a steakhouse, would you eat at it? That goes for this situation, too. They're packing this box really s**ttily. Totally. Yeah. Government contractor just jamming beer, you know, like totally uncovered weapons in a shipping container.

[00:58:40] I believe that. So that's more believable to you. A hundred percent, dude. This is America. We f***ing cut corners. Yeah. What's more believable to you? Bill Paxson as a fake. car dealers. 100 percent agree. Bill Paxson was not believable in any way. That was the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen. It was deplorable.

[00:58:56] It was the most un Bill Paxson y role he's ever done. [00:59:00] And yeah, guns get, you know, throw the safety on, they're fine. Who gives a s**t? Exactly. I go the same way, man. Shoot lightspeed spent uranium rounds. We're good. It's so weird. Put them in the f***ing shipping case. It's so weird that Jamie Lee Curtis Helen falls for this guy.

[00:59:15] She's so smart in this movie. Not really, though. I know, but he's, the way Bill Paxton plays it, it's like, oh my gosh, this guy. Yeah, I, and, and you pointed out the fact, like, you pointed out a really glaring part of this movie that I never really thought of. The fact that, like, she ends up falling for what she was attracted.

[00:59:33] And that's what they were going for. But I feel like they misdelivered on that whole premise. The guy that she fell for should have been more I don't know, like, spy like. Like, more kind of cunning, and like, savvy and sexy, and like Instead, she falls for this weird ass, like, Pseudo car salesman, like, and the reason I had, that hadn't even occurred to me until you pointed it out was because they didn't do it right, in my opinion, like, that's not, [01:00:00] that just did not connect, cause he, he was such a weird character, so anyway, it was a weird device.

[01:00:06] Yeah, we just cleaned house with the racer, that was a, that we just swept that across the board. The government would not pack a, a, a car very well, of railguns. Toe to toe! Toe to toe, here we go! This is more general. We have two of, two fantastic Arnold action films. What was the best action, best action film?

[01:00:22] We have two films that are within Arnold's range of what's considered the golden era. One the end, one kind of towards the end. I hate to say it, but I gotta go Eraser. You don't have to say it, because I would probably It was just Pure old school Arnold like as stupid as that real gun was with it's like weird Wake of whatever the f*** was coming off those rounds that they were firing that were visible Like he was just murdering and and and forgetting and moving on just like Arnold does he just tells people and slides on Into the next murder.

[01:00:53] Yeah. Oh, yeah, I kind of didn't mind it I kind of liked the gun. It was fine. But to me, the scene, the [01:01:00] airplane scene was epic. Like, absolutely. So epic. Just from, from the moment James gone, like hands that other kid, like he takes the water bottle from him and he's like, here's something you'll like a little more.

[01:01:11] This is, you'll be more interested in this. Whatever he says, he hits him a Pepsi because he's going to like poison Schwarzenegger or whatever from that, that whole scene from that to when he wakes up and he ends up like, you know, like throwing the chair out and like, and then jumps out and like dodges the engine and find like, Oh, he throws a parachute.

[01:01:29] Out and chases it that that was amazing crazy dude like and then went after it and then when it didn't work he threw the other thing and then he took on an airplane that was coming back around at like it was just the whole scene was that was great absolutely incredible that was that was pure Arnold's bizarre as cool as the bridge scene was and props to Jamie for doing all the stunts like I don't think you can top that airplane scene no I go you know there's no shame in going to race here I go there too and And there's two reasons.

[01:01:56] One, I'd love to pass this premise by you. Is there another actor [01:02:00] where, when he picks up a weapon in a certain way, you know the s**t's going down? Like, think about T2. He picks up that minigun. And he doesn't kill any of the cops, cause he's, you know, John Connor told him not to kill anybody. The minigun.

[01:02:10] And Predator. The, uh, the, the bow and arrow with the fire arrows. When Arnold picks up certain weaponry in a certain way. There's no other actor that visually you're like this s**t's going down and when he picks up two railguns. Arnold is the king of picking up a weapon and just, and it's fixing to go down.

[01:02:27] He did it in T2, he did it in predator. He does it here. I love it when like he gets two railguns like, Oh. Arnold's gonna do the thing! Arnold was the first person shooter before the first person shooter was invented. Arnold F. P. S. Schwarzenegger, born of Austria. f*** yeah. I love it. So, I love that part. One thing, and both of these films suffer a little bit, but where I think both of these films really actually do depart from our beloved genre, the 80s, Sly Arnold action, is the villains aren't great in either of these movies.

[01:02:55] But James Caan being the great actor he is makes it more interesting. As [01:03:00] much as the Crimson Jihad is bloated and, and they're this organization and it's playing on real life fears that are actually playing out in our society in real life, I was so disinterested in the first thing we see the leader do, uh, played by Malek, the actor Malek.

[01:03:15] I can't remember. Is it Art Malek I think his name is? Sorry. Yep. That's right. Yep. That's right. He slaps a woman, and I'm just like, I hate you. I know you're a villain, but you slapped a woman. I, I, I, I'm just like, I was never super into, to, to the villain, and it's like, that is the essential thing for every movie we love that we've covered.

[01:03:31] For Predator, and Rambo, and Rocky. You need a great villain in there to start there. Both are forgettable, but Wait, you mean to tell me that the guy that only had hair on the back of his head Yeah. and nothing Thing mysteriously in the front whatsoever. It was almost laughable. Yeah. He had like a lion reverse lion's mane.

[01:03:49] Like it was just the whole lion's mane was on the back of his head and he had none in the front. I was like, only in the nineties could you have a hairstyle like that and not get freaking made fun of. And it's [01:04:00] tough. And we talk about this all the time. Pre 9 11, it's tough to make jokey jokes about terrorists from the Middle East, like in the 90s.

[01:04:08] Yeah. Just because of what we know ends up happening. Yeah. So, it's like, when those are portrayed, it's like, ha ha ha, America was laughing their asses off at this, and then we know what happened. Like, it's just, it's tough. Yeah. It was very trope y. And it's weird that, you know, the reason Rambo 3 suffered, at the time Rambo 3 was the most expensive movie ever made, and the reason it suffered is because they, they picked person to cheer for at the wrong time, we're just six years removed from that.

[01:04:31] And it kind of feels like we didn't, we didn't move away from it with the action trope in that way. So, especially with the world trade bombing, I mean, that happened in the, in 93, yeah, same people. We didn't, you know, it wasn't quite as impactful. People forget about that one, but it happened. And so, yeah, it was a little weird as we've gone through this work hard.

[01:04:48] I'm starting to see, Oh, maybe this is why the genre faded out. They just couldn't stop writing. I mean, the tropes worked for a time, but they just couldn't stop writing those things out. You know, that kind of like However, only [01:05:00] challenge to that, the show 24 started in 2001 and was primarily about Middle Eastern terrorists the whole time.

[01:05:07] Didn't Homeland also Gosh, that show was so good. Homeland with Claire Danes also on Showtime? Yeah, Homeland also. I never saw either of those shows. Are they good? Dude, Homeland is good for about the first three seasons. Is 24 good? Should I watch that? Dude, 24 In my opinion was the start of like the high quality.

[01:05:23] You should watch this network television. Even 24 was like, make popcorn, sit down, really see TV, 24, my family. Like, I don't know. I haven't seen it in 20 years, but it was, it was incredible. Then it was an event like the concept of an entire season of a show covering a full 24 hour day and they showed you minute by minute and that's what every episode was.

[01:05:44] That was a damn good show. I'll take you up on it. Kiefer Sutherland was, I mean, you know, there was the, some of the early YouTube videos joking, you know, the count of him saying, damn it, because he said it a lot. Also played Snake in Metal Gear Solid V, which I'm going through right now. Oh, it's, now's a good time.

[01:05:59] This is a [01:06:00] good entrance for you to do, try 24. Dude, 24 is really good. And then you've got the guy from the Nationwide Commercials. Yeah. Who was awesome. David. Well, his name was he was president David Palmer David Palmer. Yeah, I will I will try it Well, it's three to two and and our fans are probably hating us right now because so many of them love true lies But the scorecard the scorecard dick takes off.

[01:06:20] All right, it doesn't feel emotion scorecard dick The war card has no emotion it doesn't have it doesn't play favorites. It just does what it does It's pure emotion two to three here All right best use of an animal arnold's horse and true lies or the alligator when he shoots the freaking And uses the alligator to kill the, the adversaries.

[01:06:42] Oh! The f***ing alligator scene! Worst CGI ever. That s**t was crazy! But still awesome. That was bananas. Alligators do not do any of those things. Horrible, horrible CGI but still a great idea. None of them. Your luggage, like what the f*** was that s**t? Okay, I'm gonna say something controversial here. The horrible CGI, the concept was [01:07:00] still enough to overcome how s**tty the CGI was.

[01:07:02] I still loved it. It was so bad dying. There was better technology. T2 is three years in our rear view or four years in our rear view. At this point, better CGI is available to all of us. They still chose this horrible CGI and it still works for me. I think it's, it was a big lift back then to, to get the CGI to look good even at that point.

[01:07:21] But man, that alligators. This is a stroke of genius and we've yet to really talk about the other director here. The other director is not too shabby, Mr. Chuck Russell, who directed the most beloved Nightmare on Elm Street, Dream Warriors. And also, his biggest success going into this movie, you know what that was?

[01:07:35] Jim Carrey's The Mask. This is a guy that f***s around. Dude, The Mask. He does not care. What a weird movie you haven't seen Dream Warriors, it is the best Nightmare on Elm Street. Like, it's not even close. And some of the imagery he uses there, when I saw those alligators, it was like, Oh, that's Chuck Russell.

[01:07:52] Like, he was cool with this because of some of the stuff he does in Nightmare on Elm Street. Like this dude, the mask, think about the mask, and he's doing this with alligators. [01:08:00] So I, I'm gonna go ahead and just call it, I, listen, the horse stuff is fun in Arnold, but I just thought the alligator thing, like, it didn't seem out of place.

[01:08:07] Like it, it seemed like a natural progression in that movie. Like it was a great device. Knowing Chuck Russell, it seemed right in line. I thought it was well done, I thought it was well placed. I got a racer here. Man, our fans are going to hate us for this. Is the, is the alligator thing any weirder than the fact that they're riding a horse through a Marriott?

[01:08:23] And it's just conveniently small enough to fit into an elevator? The only difference is they didn't have to CGI the horse. Yeah, but then there's blatantly just a non Arnold guy on the horse for no apparent reason. We're like, wait, where the f*** is Arnold? That's some other guy. Oh, there he is! It's another Arnold.

[01:08:38] It's a stunt guy. Arnold 2. What, how did you phrase the category? The best use of an animal. Best use of an animal. I'll go, I gotta go the horse thing here. Okay. It was more fun to watch him ride through Central Park. I think they used the horse better. And it was kind of impressive. It was. The fact that, cause there is no CGI with the horses.

[01:08:56] Like those horses are like, you know, Arnold almost died. The horse [01:09:00] association doesn't allow you to CGI horses, so. Yeah, I mean they have a guild. Yeah, the horse guild. The International Guild of Horses. It's more impressive to use horses that aren't CGI in an urban setting, in my opinion, than to just CGI, like, some alligators.

[01:09:17] She true. Okay. I love that. Phil. I, I agree. I thought we already did, Phil. I, I was just I was spitballing. He never gave a definitive. The alligator thing was so absurd. I was watching it like It's a great improv. I was watching it like, dude, they are just preying on the fears of a really ignorant public with this s**t.

[01:09:36] So anyway, uh, yeah, the horse thing wins for me. Last category. Three to three. Oh s**t. The pressure is on. Make a break. Oh my gosh. Who wins here? Arnold or Arnold? I'm really in, in just suspense here. Is true lies going to be erased? Or is Eraser going to learn the truth of the lie here? Biggest flex. We're going to finish with a flex category.

[01:09:55] I love the flex. This isn't a bro category though. It's a bro [01:10:00] flex category. It's a bro flex. I love it. Bro flex. It's got the water hose veins poking out. Yeah, man. Love the vascularity of this category. All right. Biggest flex. I love flex categories. Killing with a rotating Uzi that you accidentally dropped down the stairs and knocking out the entire Crimson Jihad group group in the room.

[01:10:21] Or, we're bringing the alligators back, killing your adversaries with alligators in the tank. Biggest flex. Both are crazy flexes. I mean, she accidentally, she drops, she drops and runs! And it's just boop, boop, boop! I have a patent issue with the situation in True Lies because guns don't work that way. I was gonna ask you, you're the marksman in the room.

[01:10:42] They're both f***ing insane. Alligators also don't work that way. Those two situations are f***ing ridiculous. Like, guns do not just go off when you drop them on the ground. That is not how they work. Guns don't go off when you drop them on the ground. They do not function that way. Also, [01:11:00] alligators don't just arbitrarily eat the s**t out of people like that.

[01:11:02] Unless you drop them down a staircase. I guess. Then they start eating Then they start eating everybody. Biggest flex? Oh man, I, I personally loved when Arnold just f***ing shot that alligator tank and those gators came out and then the chaos that ensued. So I'll go biggest flex like having the foresight to take out a tank full of alligators with two bullets left in order to kill your adversaries.

[01:11:25] Versus just dropping a gun down the stairs and, you know, having an impossible situation unfold in front of you where you happen to also kill a Middle Eastern terrorist group. That was bulls**t. With the name Crimson Jihad, which is the most contrived, weird name. From a filmmaking standpoint, both of them felt like bits, right?

[01:11:43] They're just like, this is just kind of like a thing we're doing. A punchline. We hope it, yeah, exactly. But I, we're speaking in terms of what's the bigger flex. And I think to Phil's point, the bigger flex would be, he was like, I'm going to blow the glass out of this. And then they're going to have, there's going to be a problem here with that.

[01:11:59] Agreed. [01:12:00] Yeah. Which the gun thing was an accident. Right? Yep. That was kind of a comedy of it all. She dropped it and it accidentally killed everyone. Like accidentally killing people is never funny in my opinion. It's just not like. Even if they're bad people, it's like, you didn't even, that's not even cool.

[01:12:15] Like, you just, you killed them by mistake. I don't know. Not to mention that when it starts off, it's at the top of the stairs. The angle it would have to achieve firing, even though it can't possibly do that, let's say theoretically it could happen. Yeah. It's at the top of the stairs, yet it's killing people every step it takes.

[01:12:31] Even though at the top of the stairs, it's way over everyone else's heads. Like, the angle that it would have to take to doesn't add up. It never points back at her. Like what's happened. It doesn't hit Arnold. It doesn't. Yeah. It's stupid. To me, that scene just kind of solidified the fact that true lies is a comedy.

[01:12:47] It was reminding you like, Hey, we're not taking ourselves. Yeah. Like that was just the most James Cameron was in between wife. Number four, number five. He was really feeling He was maybe feeling out wife number six with Jamie Lee Curtis. He was still married, so he was like, Oh, I [01:13:00] can't marry her like I married Sarah Hamilton.

[01:13:02] Maybe if I let her accidentally kill some people, she'll take me in. It's like, drop this and maybe we'll have a relationship. I can't believe it, but Eraser, I think, I guess with that decision that I'm gonna go with, Eraser's gonna take out True Lies. Same. Yeah. Same, I Apologies, fanbase. Yeah, I know, and again, the war card The war card doesn't feel pain, it doesn't It's just like the Terminator, it doesn't have emotion.

[01:13:23] It is here to wipe out the future. And it doesn't apologize. It doesn't. And it shows up naked. That's why we Every time. That's why we shifted to Eraser, because we wanted to come here with better films. Because they're both great. I Listen, I I go Same Same thing. I God, I love James Cameron so much, but True Lies is so uneven to me.

[01:13:40] And this This scene to me was the ultimate expression of how uneven this movie is. Like, cause James Cameron is not a guy that, that nothing is accidental with him. Like when you watch aliens, the original Terminator is so meticulous. It is so well paced. The pace is the reason that movie rocks. Like Arnold didn't know English.

[01:13:58] So he wrote a script that, [01:14:00] that really bent to what he could do at the time. And like, it's, it's about the pace. It's almost a horror movie in some ways. And Cameron is so intentional, but there's so much malpractice and true lies. And this is, this seems lazy. to me at least the alligators it made sense he had two bullets left he's like in there there's more there's more enemies than bullets so he shoots the freak he's in a zoo and he kills the alligators that was awesome like it was creative it was interesting the cgi was really bad it was so bad but it was it was a progression and it's just right i don't know cameron cameron was something's wrong here i just i just felt like he was out of his element if you're you're if you're sitting at a table and important you know you're a writer's room or whatever you're like what if what if he shot what if The shot, the alligator, like the glass and the alligators.

[01:14:42] Oh s**t! Oh my god, that's so, like, But then, like, what if, what if, like, she drops the gun on the stairs and it just happens to, like, go off eight times and kill everyone? But I think had True Lies been more overtly funny than that scene would have landed, but it wasn't overtly funny, [01:15:00] so It's like, you don't know what to make of that scene when it comes around.

[01:15:02] It's like, are we trying to be serious? You know? Yeah. Anyway, that's a, that's a great point. Like true lies was a comedy that never quite realized it was a comedy. And it was also an action film that never quite realized it was an action film. So it was like, is it a soundtrack issue? What's some lighter? I don't remember the music from either music make you feel like, Oh, they're being silly here.

[01:15:23] I feel like it was scored like a true action film. Yes! Dude, that's such a good point. But then they were like, trying to do jokes and, you know, you had Tom Arnold, Tom Arnold ing, and you had, you know, Bill Paxton, Bill Paxton ing, and Arnold was surprisingly not funny, even though he could have been, and Jamie Lee Curtis is not funny, but she was doing bits.

[01:15:42] She's quirky. She's quirky, and she was dropping guns, and she was stripping, and she was, you know, like It just, yeah, it didn't land for me. So you shredded AF for the strip scene? Well, not to prolong the end here, but I was just thinking about 1994 as a year for film. The fact that, so I think, I don't remember these perfectly, but so, the thing is, True [01:16:00] Lies, I think, made, it would cost 100 million to make, it made 120.

[01:16:03] It only made 150 total, so the only way that it made the most profit was internationally, so it only made like an extra 20 million on top of cost domestically. So it wasn't a huge hit, but when you look at 94, listen to this list of movies, guys. I want to. Shawshank Redemption, Pulp Fiction, Forrest Gump, Leon the Professional, which is one of my favorites.

[01:16:22] The Lion King, The Mask, another Chuck Russell movie. The other one is Jean Reno, right? Yes. Yeah. I love that. We gotta cover that movie at some point, by the way. Speed, with our beloved Keanu Reeves, Legends of the Fall, Brad Pitt making his ramp up to stardom, uh, Dumb and Dumber, The Little Rascals, Interview with a Vampire, another Brad Pitt movie.

[01:16:41] Good God. Ace Ventura, Pet Detective, 1994, one of my, and you guys know, and we're gonna cover it, The Crow, came out in 1994. I have a, dude, talk, so, 1994. Natural Born Killers. Wow, dude. That Quentin Tarantino, Oliver Stone, Tarantino wrote that film. This is 1994. Woody, Woody Harrelson, right? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. [01:17:00] True lies.

[01:17:00] The 90s rule. 1994. The mid 90s. s**t just felt good back then. It did. True lies is a blip on the radar in 94. I also can't believe I was eight years old in 1994 because my daughter is about to turn seven and I feel like she's like so old and I don't remember jack s**t about 1994. Yeah, 94 may be, I mean, I remember Lion King.

[01:17:22] I never saw all those other ones. So many people making their ascent. I mean, 94 might be, if we had like a bracket of years for film, I mean, 94 is going to like be first seed. The mid 90s had a lot going for it though. There was a, there was a lot of amazing stuff coming out there. So. Anyway, all that to say, confirming our point about James Cameron and some of the malpractice, this movie, although it did, did well, it cleaned up mostly internationally and it had all these upand Quentin Tarantino has a writing credit and his most prestigious film come out this year, so.

[01:17:49] Three to four, and I'm sorry ifremember, this war card is completely out of my ass. No, no, no. No apologies. No apologies. The war card does not apologize. It doesn'tit doesn't feel emotion. It's Kyle. [01:18:00] You can, but the war card doesn't. Here to change the future. Well, I'm beholden to it. It's its own entity. It's like the exorcist.

[01:18:05] Like, it's just, I can't even. I, we work for Cyrex. Yeah, we do. We are. There's no moles here. It's the, it's the entity, but a race to three or four. Anyway, it was, it was only a matter of time before we did an Arnold versus Arnold. It felt so good to be slamming on the microphone with you guys again. And thank you all listeners for being patient.

[01:18:21] It's been a crazy summer. We'll get back on it with the, the regularity, but this has been fun. And, uh, hope you're all having an amazing summer and a pucker those assholes. I'm Kyle. Drew. And I'm Fubwop Fubwop. Tell the true lie. Love you.[01:19:00] 

[01:19:14] ​

Kyle Castro
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