Book review - "The Future was now" by Chris Nashawaty

 Not bad look at key films from 1982 - ET, Poltergeist, The Thing, Blade Runner, etc. I didn't learn anything new and some of the prose was a little purple but it passed the time.

Book review - "John McTiernan" by Larry Taylor

 I enjoyed this I just wish it was better, had more research done. Felt like an extended magazine article. Needed less skim analysis of the films, more of a deep dive.

Book review - "The Last Action Heroes: The Triumphs, Flops, and Feuds of Hollywood’s Kings of Carnage" by Nick de Semlyen

 This was fine. Easy read. Very surface. Very kind on Chuck Norris who I gather is more terrible. Seagal is lively as he always is. I was hoping for more of a deep dive. These Hollywood stars are so addicted to log cabin personal narratives - I mean, Stallone went to finishing school, for crying out loud.

Movie review - "Batman and Robin" (1997) **

 Look, yes, it's bad, but not one of the worst films ever made. It does have a vision - bright and colourful. Young kids will like it. Clooney wobbles his head still a lot at this stage but he's fine. Chris O'Donnell whines a lot but he doesn't have much to play.

Film has bad emotional core. Who cares about Robin sulking around Batman? Or the villains? Elle MacPherson is the beard. Alicia Silverstone is wasted as Batgirl. Film should have been about her. Bane is wasted.

They borrow structure of Batman Forever with Uma Thurman as mad scientis and Arnie as the established villain. Good showmanship to have Arnie as villain.

Movie review - "Predator" (1987) ****

I remember with this film you really felt Arnie was going to be different from any old action movie star - this was "elevated genre" despite John McTiernan not having much of a track record. It starts excellently, with its beautiful photography and rousing music and star entrance, a bunch of macho tough guys on a mission.

The cast is a hilarious combo - Arnie, Carl Weathers, Jesse Ventura, Bill Duke, Sonny Landham and whimpy old Black. Everyone looks like a body builder rather than a regular soldier - apart from Black But the machismo is hilarious (such as Arnie and Carl shaking hands) and most have actual characters to play: Black's is limited to making jokes about big vaginas, but Bill Duke gets to be in love with Ventura, Richard Chavez has mor rat cunning, Weathers gets to redeem himself, Landham goes crazy, . Oh there is a hot native girl who acts as an audience surrogate.

The film has a big benefit from the others in that this one they got to show the monster for the first time.

It switches into a higher plane for the last act when Arnie goes solo against the monster.

Peter Hyams Top Ten

1. Capricorn One (1978). His best film. Everything works. 

2. Outland (1981). Not everything works. But lots of fun.

3. 2010 (1984). Thankless task. But it's fun and it's remained vivd for me.

4. Running Scared (1986). Fun buddy cop film.

5. Narrow Margin (1990). No one saw this when it came out but it's fun.

6. Our Time (1974). Sweet. Female writer. Not perfect but interesting.

7. Goodnight My Love (1972). Overrated but still entertaining.

8. End of Days (1999). Silly. But it has the courage of its silliness.

9. Enemies Closer (2013). Terrific Jean Claude Van Damme performance.

10. The Presidio (1988). Cheerful slick 80s Hollywood stuff with Meg Ryan as Sean Connery's trashy daughter.

Movie review - "Stay Hungry" (1976) **

 The difference between a real star and a handsome character actor. Jack Nicholson is a star. The film would've been perfect for him - a Southern rich boy who falls in with characters at a gym as park of a shonky land deal. But they've got Jeff Bridges. Handsome, excellent actor. Just not a star. Doesn't have the charisma.

This is an odd sort of movie. Rich kid means... gym. Sally Field is in a career changing performance as the receptionist, flashing her but and boobs. She's very good. Arnie is in this too. (Rafelson's casting eye was really good - there's also Robert Englund and Robert Moseley).

Some Rafelson regulars like Scatman Crothers are in this. The film feels like it's made up as it goes along. I went with this for a bit but then got bored.

I'm surprised this got Rafelson kicked off FIST (according to Joe Eszterhas) but it's not very good. The best thing about it is the acting, especially Sally Field.

Movie review - "End of Days" (1999) **1/2

 Dumb. Loud. Arnie has too much dialogue.  Rips off so many films - The Terminator, Rosemary's Baby, Braveheart. Unpleasant story basically about stopping Gabriel Byrne raping Robin Tunney.

Tunney is good in these wide eyed innocent roles. Byrne is good in these evil devil roles. Rod Steiger eats scenery. Miram Margoyles adds camp value. High death toll. Peter Hyams photography and editing - quick cuts, etc. Random sexy scene with Byrne sleeping with Udo Kier's wife and daughter. 

Still there's always something happening and plenty of action. Logical finale.

Movie review - "Red Sonja" (1985) **1/2

 One of several films Dino de Laurentiis forced Arnie to do after the first Conan - Conan the Destroyer, this, Raw Deal. Brigitte Nielsen looks terrific in the title role - a believable athlete, she can move and fight. Her acting is limited so they should have teamed her with a top class actor for most of the running time - instead they give her Arnie, who comes and goes but who wasn't very good at this stage, and a kid.

The script was (re)written by George MacDonald Fraser and is full of action familiar to those who have read his novels - evil priests, ceremonies, swordfights, comic sidekicks, etc. But it lacks the key aspect of the best Fraser novels - memorable lead characters. They are just stoic. The movie needed a Flashman or a Thomas Blood from The Pyrates.

 Key mistakes are made - either by him or in the cut. The murder of Sonja's family, which sets up the whole film, is skipped over (compare to Conan which gave it the time it deserved), Arnold popping in and out is weird, the film seems reluctant to focus too much on Sonja.

Nicely shot and costumed. It's not very good but impossible to dislike.

Movie review - "The Villain" (1979) *1/2

 After two big hits with Burt Reynolds, Hal Needham's directorial career stumbled a little without him with this bright comic book Western comedy. It's an odd sort of movie - I can see they were going for an anything-goes type feel, which is fine, and can work, and certainly has in other Needham films, but not here.

First of all it doesn't have the pace. The plot is about Kirk Douglas trying to rob Arnie and Ann Margaret but it takes ages to set up and get going.

Second, while Arnold Schwarzeneggar is ideal as an innocent, it seems weird him being in the West - now, I know Austrians would've been in the old West, it still seems weird especially as the film is a play on old Westerns..

Ann Margret is fun as the slightly trashy woman constantly trying to seduce Arnie but as he shows no interest it gets repetitive. They've gone for the gag - "oh haha he's not keen haha" - but over a feature that doesn't sustain. Nothing much sustains. The Road Runner cartoon motif works best in seven minute installments. This needs depth. Blazing Saddles had the friendship of the lead two and a really serious subject matter.

Entertainingly odd support cast including Ruth Brazzi, Paul Lynde. You can tell everyone had fun making it. But it starts to drag and then gets annoying.

Book review - "The Beauty of Living Twice" by Sharon Stone (2021)

 Excellent introduction - the tale of her brain bleed. It's well written. Actor-y - lots of talk about spirituality and supporting HIV research and friends. I was hoping for more stuff on the movies, TBH. There's a little on Basic Instinct and Casino and some on the rough shooting conditions on King Solomon's Mines. An entertaining bit about her start in Stardust Memories. She has nice things to say about Arnie, Paul Verhoeven, Michael Douglas. She talks a lot about her friends and family. She doesn't mention Joe Eszterhas (which must have driven him wild). There's a fun anecdote about a producer who I assume was Robert Evans encouraging her to have an affair with who I assume was Billy Baldwin. She takes pride in The Quick and the Dead. Talks fondly about Bruce Wagner, mentions a first husband and that newspaper guy is alluded to as a lousy husband after her stroke (but she thanks him in the "thanks" section). She had dodgy health. Says nice things about Bruce Beresford.

I was hoping for more goss, to be honest, and more of the films. Nothing about Irreconcilable Differences or Catwoman or Police Academy 4 or the action films or The Mighty and The Muse or The Specialist.

She was so good looking and great on screen. I remember when Basic Instinct came out she was the flavour of the month but me and my mates had liked her since King Solomon's Mines. She was good then. I am genuinely surprised she didn't last longer as a star. Bad luck. Made a lot of films that would've sounded great on paper: Sphere, Diabolique, Sliver, The Mighty,The Muse. To be fair, not sure what she turned down.

Not a bad read just not what I was hoping. I'm glad she's doing better. Poor Joe Eszterhas!

Movie review - "The Expendables" (2010) ***

 Loud, fun, expert. Expert ish. Just so much fun seeing all these hams together. Stallon gives a lot of time and space to Jason Staham. Jet Li's role isn't much but he has a fun character. Dolph Lundgren has the best part. I forgot Terry Crews was in the movie. Eric Roberts is ideal.

I had a good time watching it.

Movie review - "The Long Goodbye" (1973) **** (re-watching)

 Maybe I'm being peer group pressured into that four stars. I like Elliot Gould as Marlowe, I think that works. I love the use of soundtrack - overlapping dialogue and radio. I love the little quirks like the security guard who impersonates movie stars.

Sterling Hayden and Mark Rydell are stunningly good in their parts. Rydell is terrifying - it's a shame he doesn't get a come uppance/resolution. Nina Van Pallandt and the guy who plays Terry Lennox are more variable.

I didn't mind the finale - I totally got why Gould did it. It's better than being a little sook.

Arnie is in it.

Movie review - "Red Heat" (1988) ***

My memories of this film tend to be negative but re-watching it I had more fun than I thought it would. The central concept is very strong - a Russian cop in Chicago - and Arnie is very well cast. Walter Hill handles everything with skill  in his 48 Hours style rather than his Warriors style.

The movie has a flaw, two flaws rather. First it doesn't have enough fun with the fish out of water concept - a Russian in Chicago. You can think of the scenes and moments easy - Arnie dealing with decadent capitalism... modern music and fashion and money... and being disgusted and taciturn. They don't give him a romance or scenes having to spend money or wear flash clothes. They don't have fn with the premise.

The second problem is the Jim Belushi character. Belushi does a good job as a crumpled cop but he struggles with his character. There's no reason for his character to dislike Russians other than just because. One minute he speaks up for a victim's rights the other he doesn't care. He's a bit sloppy but no fun is had with that.  There's a fun little bit where Belushi scolds the ex husband of Belushi's sister - why not meet her? Give her a romance with Arnie.

Actually Belushi's character could be cut out of the film. You might have been better off... and had Arnie's partner in the US be Gina Gershon. Being Ed O'Ross' ex would be great conflict.

oFor some reason the film has Laurence Fishburne and Peter Boyle as officious cops. Why?

The female characters are whores, women who scream naked in bed while someone is shot, and waitresses. The actors are all pretty good though - Arnie is great, Belushi good despite his character, people like Brion James pop up, Gershon has star chops (it's a drag her character dies there's no need for it). Ed O'Ross is a very good villain.

Movie review - "Welcome to the Jungle" (2003) ***

The script for this film is absolutely fine. There's a strong cast and gorgeous locations - jungle has rarely looked as lushly green.

But there's a central, major fault - the casting of Sean William Scott.

I know Scott was a hot ticket at the time, and it isn't as though he's bad he's just pointless. What's his character? What's the type? He's just sort of a young cocky guy - a pseudo Tom Cruise.

If he was playing Stifler from American Pie that would've made sense because that would've been funny. But it's as though Scott didn't want to do that... but didn't replace it with anything else. Because Dwayne Johnson is in it Scott can't even be that heroic - Johnson gets dibs.

I kept wishing it was a buddy comedy with another buddy. Jack Black, say. Or a girl, so that there would be some sexual tension. Rosario Dawson is a revolutionary - but there's no reason you couldn't have two.

The action scenes are done with energy, it's an engaging film, Johnson has charisma and there's a cute cameo from Arnie.

Script review - "Red Heat" (1988) by Walter Hill

Hard going. One of my least favourite Walter Hill scripts. The old leanness is gone replaced by this lumbersome thing, an attempt to recreate the success of Hill's 48 Hours - which to be blunt I wasn't that a big fan of either. But at least it had Eddie Murphy.

This one did have Arnold Schwarzenegger and to be fair the basic idea is excellent - a Russian cop comes to Chicago to arrest a crook and clashes with a Chicago cop. The sort of communism vs capitalism schtick worked well in Ninotchka and it's an excellent role for Arnie.

But the film fails to exploit it. It starts off well enough with Arnie being a bad ass in a bathhouse, losing his partner (McBain!) and being assigned to get the baddie (with some hot, emotionless sex with a fellow Russkie).

But then when the action goes to Chicago things go wonky. It takes far too long for Arnie to team up with the Chicago cop who is spectacularly uninteresting. I mean I guess Nick Nolte's character was uninteresting in 48 Hours but at least he had a girlfriend and inherent conflict against Eddie Murphy's character - cop vs crook and also (much less enjoyably) white vs black.

Here Jim Belushi is just a stock wise arse cop who plays by his own rules. So when Arnie comes over and plays by his own rules there's no conflict between them. Jim Belushi just doesn't like Arnie because he's Russian, which is crap, even in 1988, because the Russian is a cop taking down the drug dealer.

There are obvious places this could've gone to get the conflict - Belushi should've been a capitalist, who liked fancy clothes, or hated the Russians because of some Cold War thing (maybe his people were killed by Russians). But no - he thinks judges are too soft of crime, and crooks are bad... just like Arnie.

Also he doesn't bring anything to the party in terms of story - you could really cut him out of the whole film except for the last bit where he tips off Arnie where the baddy will be... but even this could've been done by someone else.

You think you're going to get some comedy of Arnie being tempted by a capitalist, free society - romance, religion, lots of money, nice suits, fantastic food... Have a girl try to seduce him. But nope they don't go for it.

So we're left with an unexciting story and some run of the mill action. It was a slog to get through.

Movie review - "Milius" (2017) ****

I think this is a revised version of the documentary - there's more stuff about the Genghis Khan project (did this prompt the recut? to get interest in that?), more footage of Milius post stroke. He's struggling a bit with his words, which is sad to see - but makes the film more epic, more moving.

The talking heads remain great, including Milius' old footage himself - George Lucas, Coppola, Spielberg, Michael Mann, Bryan Singer (weird to see him), Ed O'Neill, Sam Elliot, Harrison Ford, Arnold Schwarzenegger.

There's few women - his daughter, Lea Thompson,  Kathleen Kennedy. Not enough talk about how, frankly, the depiction of women in Milius films is shocking.  There's inclusion of a talk with a female executive around the time of Big Wednesday where he's berating her, which does not show Milius in a good light. We have lots of stuff involving his kids but no mention of his wives.

A very good documentary. Not uncritical - it mocks how he became a caricature - but very positive.

Movie review - "Commando" (1985) **1/2

A silly outlandish comic book movie which has some historical significance (no kidding) - it was the first hit Arnie had without the backing of a big character, like Conan or The Terminator. Arnie basically plays Arnie.

The set up and ticking clock are all fine - Arnie is an ex special ops guy living in the mountains with his daughter, who is kidnapped in order for Arnie to kill the president of a fictitious country. When Arnie knocks off his watcher on a plane, he knows he's only got X hours before the plane lands to rescue his daughter.

That gives the film good pace, although it's a shame Arnie never goes to the country and/or gets the president involved. There are other gaping holes in the story - why doesn't Arnie call his officer James Olson right away? (They could have covered it by having Arnie think the government might be in on the conspiracy but they don't.) Why did they bother killing off members of his team at the beginning other than to have an exciting opening sequence? Isn't it an awfully risky strategy for him to turn up on the island and starting to kill everyone before he found his daughter?

But the film has so many things going for it. James Horner's score is genuinely great - catchy and a bit different. The cast is fantastic: Alyssa Milano as the daughter; Rae Dawn Chong in the Madeleine Carroll 39 Steps part; David Patrick Kelly and Bill Duke as baddies; Dan Hedaya in brown face as a villain; Bill Paxton in a small role; and most of all Vernon Wells as Arnie's psycho former colleague (should've done more in Hollywood, Wells, he's great). It has a cheerful nature. It's very violent - things being plunged into chests and so on - but none of it feels real. It's silly and crappy and gets worse as it goes along but the foundations are strong and Arnie is perfect in the lead.

Movie review - "Milius" (2013) ****

A highly entertaining look at the life and times of one of Hollywood's most colourful characters, and top writers - at least during the first part of his career. Milius became something of a cartoon caricature of himself, as this film points out, but early on few writers could match him for lively, original work: Apocalypse Now, The Life and Times of Judge Roy Bean, Jeremiah Johnson. I've read these scripts and they're fantastic.

The quality of his output started to decline as he went into directing (not uncommon, unless the person in question worked with a co-writer) - but Milius enjoyed a decent amount of success as a director: Conan the Barbarian and Red Dawn. His career started to go south in the late 80s - Milius blames this in part on prejudice against conservatives, which interviewees Clint Eastwood and Arnold Schwarzeneggar poo poo... A more likely reason (as pointed out here) was the commercial failure of several Milius films, notably Farewell to the King and Flight of the Intruder - and also Milius' persona I think began to grate. He kept busy as a writer and director although never matched his old pals like George Lucas, Coppola and Steven Spielberg. Milius was never as good a director as he was a writer - the perfect director for him was Francis Ford Coppola; I also think it's a shame he never got to work with other operatic directors like Brian de Palma.

What gives this film unexpected gravitas is the dimension of unexpected tragedy - his friends talking about how Milius became a caricature, his friend who embezzled from him, a stroke that meant he couldn't speak. By the end of the film he has recovered a little bit, but not a lot - he can shoot and move around but the filmmakers don't show him talking that much.

There are some excellent talking heads - Coppola, Spielberg, Schrader, Eastwood - plus some who don't really have a connection, but I assume agreed to talk for box office value (Stallone, Bryan Singer). Michael Mann is in there - Milius made an episode of Miami Vice for fun, although we only hear about it during the closing credits, just like we only hear about his contribution to UFC there.

There are other areas I would have liked to hear more about - his marriages (none mentioned), his female characters (only two women talk, Lea Thompson and his daughter), his production company the A team.

But these are outweighed by the positives: the depiction of the collegiate atmosphere of 70s film making, home movies of the young Milius, extracts from old USC student films, the talk of the stroke and ensuing battles, meeting his kids. A must for film buffs.

Movie review - "Sabotage" (2013) ***

Gritty action flick very much in the nihilist vein of late 60s early 70s Sam Peckinpah - cops are corrupt or looking to cover their arse or actual killers, drug cartels torture and rape, innocent bystanders get run over and shot in car chases. It's full on and David Ayers gets marks for ensuring his movie has integrity - even if its bleak look at humanity is grim going at times.

For the most part I got into this though - the tough bantering dialogue (though the swearing got monotonous - I'm not anti swearing I just wish a little more imagination had been used), the fast paced plot, the intensity of the action, the way women are allowed to be as tough as the men, the quality of most of the acting, the star turn by Marielle Enos as a ballsy agent, the by play between Olivia Williams and Harold Perrineau.

There were two flaws for me. Firstly was the casting of Arnold Schwarzengger. He does everything he's asked to do and really tries and it's a novelty to see him in this kind of role... but he's simply miscast. We've seen, read and heard too much about Arnie being so self motivated and positive and noble - he simply can't convey the edge, corruption, loss, and darkness of this character. It needed someone with real darkness, like Tommy Lee Jones or Nick Nolte or Gene Hackman. Arnie is basically too upset a person and not good enough an actor to get into the skin of the character the way he needs to. (He would have been better off in the Olivia Williams part).

Secondly was the fact the film feels like two stories awkwardly meshed: Arnie seeking revenge for the murder and torture of his wife, and DEA people stealing money and then being killed off one by one. They try to link them but it didn't work for me - so the last act felt like an epilogue, or a scene from another movie. It's like there should have been two films - Arnie looking for revenge, and a sequel where he and his team steal money.