True Lies (1994)

Matt (00:00:20):

Oh, it’s 1-Week Rental, a movie podcast where we spend the week with a movie and we take you along for the journey. And that journey, it has two guides, two hosts, one of them, a disgusting, detestable film snob who makes you uncomfortable. The other a likable every man. I am the film snob. My name is Matt Stokes. Who’s here with me?

Laci (00:00:40):

My name is Laci Roth, and though I have crippling dyslexia, it makes it to where I cannot even recall actors’ names, I am blossoming into a cinephile. Maybe you notice my pedals.

Matt (00:00:54):

Every single week on one week rental, we dive deep into a different movie. We watch it multiple times. We research it. We read interviews with the people who made it. That all goes into the history segment of the episode, which is available on YouTube and on podcasts wherever you get your podcasts.

Laci (00:01:09):

But what if we wanted more, Matt?

Matt (00:01:11):

The only place you could do that is by subscribing to the podcast and listening.

Laci (00:01:14):

How much does that cost?

Matt (00:01:16):

Nothing. It’s free.

Laci (00:01:17):

Oh my God, what a deal. And we dive into the facts and get a little bit into the study of the people, which we find the most interesting, both the characters, but the people who actually make and produce the movie. But for the real juicy guts and bones, those are juicy. You need to listen to the full discussion of our podcast. You know you want two hours of true lies.

Matt (00:01:42):

And spoiler alert for true lies. If you are curious about what happens in true lies and you don’t want it spoiled for you, go no further. But if you don’t mind, go ahead. We’re going to talk deeply about every movie that we talk about. We spoil every single movie we talk about. That’s

Laci (00:01:56):

Why we go for the old stuff.

Matt (00:01:57):

Exactly.

Laci (00:01:58):

Spoil the old stuff. Milk that’s old goes spoiled anyway. So you see what I’m saying?

Matt (00:02:04):

Yeah. So we took a big heaping spoiled tablespoon of true lies. Movie I’ve seen probably five times, but you know, James Cameron is … Here’s what’s really special about me. I like James Cameron.

Laci (00:02:17):

Wow. Interesting. So different. Not the every man I was expecting.

Matt (00:02:20):

I know. But I would say he is my favorite director. He’s the one that I feel defensive about.

Laci (00:02:25):

Fucking nerd.

Matt (00:02:26):

Because everything that I say I want out of directors, he does it. Boom, boom. At least at the big blockbuster level.

Laci (00:02:34):

Big explosions.

Matt (00:02:35):

But you like true lies or you did?

Laci (00:02:37):

I do.

Matt (00:02:38):

And I feel like we’re good. We have our biggest disagreements over the avatar movies. And I feel like even true lies, which you like, but I’m like, “Fuck you, you don’t like it the right way.”

Laci (00:02:49):

I only like the truth and you only like the lies because you’re a bad person.

Matt (00:02:52):

You’d seen the movie before?

Laci (00:02:54):

Yeah, this is probably my third time.

Matt (00:02:55):

Okay. You like it? Thumbs up or thumbs down?

Laci (00:02:58):

What the fuck? You can’t just wait, huh? You just need to know.

Matt (00:03:01):

I got to know because I’m pretty mad.

Laci (00:03:04):

Thumbs up.

Matt (00:03:05):

Okay, good.

Laci (00:03:06):

My ass. Oh no. So you didn’t read my letter box? We better not know. Oh, you always fucking …

Matt (00:03:13):

Okay. Okay. Well, Jesus. Okay. We’re going to get into the history of James Cameron and True Lies. Tell you all about it in our history segment. All right, so true lies. I feel like it’s legacy today because it’s sandwiched in between Terminator two and Titanic for Cameron. And so I feel like that’s one of its legacies and it’s kind of like, hey, that’s when James Cameron made kind of a normal movie and he never, ever did that otherwise.

Laci (00:04:00):

That’s so funny that that’s his version of a normal movie.

Matt (00:04:03):

But you could see the version of this that stars whoever, Mel Gibson, Bruce Willis, or even Dolph Lundgren and was made for $10 million. Can’t let my wife know I’m a spy. Oh no. And instead, this was the most expensive movie ever made at the time.

Laci (00:04:17):

I’d do rather Liam Neeson, but all the ones you said too.

Matt (00:04:20):

Yeah, but Liam Neeson wasn’t making movies like

Laci (00:04:22):

That at the time. Do you know him?

Matt (00:04:24):

So its legacy is one, it’s James Cameron’s like kind of normalish movie. It’s the first movie to ever cost $100 million to make.

Laci (00:04:30):

Congratulations.

Matt (00:04:32):

The movie disappeared from streaming and I think was not on cable because of nine eleven because it’s about terrorism.

(00:04:39):

There’s some of that of people being like, “Hey, why do you never see True Lies on TV anymore?” And then content warning SA, allegations leveled by Eliza Dushku against the stunt coordinator of the movie. So we are going to talk a little bit about that. Eliza Dushku, who was only 12 years old at the time and we’ll get into the very disturbing allegations. The entire crew and cast, Arnold, Cameron, they all support Eliza Dushku against the stunt coordinator, but we will explain all of that. So I feel like that’s sort of the messy legacy of true lies that we’re going to unpack here.

Laci (00:05:15):

A mesogese.

Matt (00:05:17):

This all starts with a French film. Laci, or were you aware of this sort of mini craze in the ’90s of American movies being remade out of French like farces, The Birdcage.

Laci (00:05:32):

Oh, okay. What about Leon the Professional or is that just French?

Matt (00:05:35):

No, that’s made by a French.

Laci (00:05:38):

That’s just French. Okay.

Matt (00:05:39):

Yeah.

Laci (00:05:39):

French language. I didn’t know that’s what they were doing, but I do like The Birdcage.

Matt (00:05:44):

Yeah. Jungle to Jungle, the Tim Allen movie was a remake of a French movie called-

Laci (00:05:48):

Jumbos in France?

Matt (00:05:49):

Well, in France, the movie was called Little Indian Big City where they just plucked an indigenous kid out of South America or something.

Laci (00:05:56):

What the fuck?

Matt (00:05:57):

Now he’s in Paris. What?

Laci (00:05:58):

They use our slurs there? Wow.

Matt (00:06:01):

Yeah. I bet

Laci (00:06:02):

They serve freedom fries.

Matt (00:06:04):

Yeah, that is not unique to here.

Laci (00:06:07):

What? Our miseizing indigenous people of the United States and calling them Indians.

Matt (00:06:15):

Oh, absolutely. Yes.

Laci (00:06:16):

That spread like wild. They’re like, yes, that’s perfect. Belittle the shit out of that motherfucker.

Matt (00:06:22):

How

Laci (00:06:22):

Do Indians feel?

Matt (00:06:24):

From

Laci (00:06:24):

India.

Matt (00:06:25):

If you were like a racist French person, you’d have to be like, “Well, there’s East Indians and West Indians.” And West Indian would indicate coming from North America and the Caribbean islands are called the West Indies.

Laci (00:06:35):

Oh my. We suck.

Matt (00:06:38):

Yeah, Jungle to Jungle, Three Fugitives and True Lies was one of these based on a French movie called La Total or The Total. In Arnold Schwarzenegger’s memoir, Total Recall, which I’ve read several times, despite it not being that good, here’s what he says. “I have been told when I’m reading quotes not to do voices.”

Laci (00:06:58):

Okay. Well, let me hear your Arnold.

Matt (00:07:00):

Quote, “Bobby Slava called and said Tina French movie that I might like to remake for the Malcolm screen.” I

Laci (00:07:05):

Think it’s pretty good.

Matt (00:07:06):

“It’s called La Total,” he said. And it’s about this 007 type ass kicking guy whose wife doesn’t know what he does for a living. Sometimes he comes home all banged up and has to make excuses. He’ll be arresting these international criminals and meanwhile, he can’t figure out how to deal with his teenage daughter who’s doing crazy things. “Sounds funny, “I said,” Sounds funny, “I said. “Yeah, yeah, it’s comedy and action. You laugh, but there’s a lot of suspense.” I called the movie’s agent and asked him to send it over. I should just commit her and I fell in love with it. Bobby was right though. It was too static for an American movie and needed action and energy. Jim Cameron, I thought he’s been planning to shoot Spider-Man, but that just fell through. So I called Cameron and said, “Let’s do this together the way you envision things.

(00:07:50):

Big.”

Laci (00:07:52):

With seven acts.

Matt (00:07:55):

Oh yeah, a lot of acts, but that’s … God, this is a movie. I love every single scene in this … I think everything is great about this movie, but it’s not a great movie. Does that make sense?

Laci (00:08:06):

Yeah.

Matt (00:08:07):

Whatever the expression is, it’s less than the sum of

Laci (00:08:09):

Its parts. It’s the

Matt (00:08:10):

Other way around. It does not add up to a whole … Yeah. Yeah. I don’t think this is a great movie. I love this movie. It is a very flawed movie. The excess is why I love it so much, and it’s a movie that knows … It knows how stupid all of this is and it knows you know that.

Speaker 3 (00:08:29):

So

Matt (00:08:29):

It’s like, no, we’re not stupid because you know that we’re stupid and we’re proceeding forward with that knowledge. Can I say

Laci (00:08:35):

Something that’s going to

Matt (00:08:37):

Aggravate you?

Laci (00:08:38):

This wouldn’t have bothered me the last two times I saw it, but it now does bother me that this is just an Islamophobic. I mean, I’m on the bad guy’s side, which I don’t … The things he says about America and why he’s going to play too violence, I’m like, “Yeah, that sounds like we

Matt (00:08:54):

Deserve it. ” Yeah, I was going to save that for when we discussed the movie, but that was so stark this time.

Laci (00:09:00):

It was very-

Matt (00:09:01):

Because people have criticized like, “Oh, it’s spreading stereotypes about Arabs and that’s a thing in action movies.” What you don’t normally see is the person who’s supposed to be the villain of the movie saying, “You’re starving our women and our children and you’re bombing us from afar.” And as he is saying this, the United States of America is literally doing that to Iraq at the exact same time

Speaker 3 (00:09:25):

Via

Matt (00:09:25):

Economic sanctions. Look into this. We killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people in between the wars we started on against them.

Laci (00:09:33):

And I mean, ever since you pointed it out, I can’t help but see it, but the fact that they have these military flying … It’s something between a plane and a helicopter. I don’t know what those things are, but because there’s actual military in this, I know for a fact that there is military propaganda. I mean, maybe Osher, but maybe minus that, they could say a little less fluffy shit about our government. Oh,

Matt (00:10:00):

What I’m saying is, I think that is more than you normally get in a Hollywood movie like this.

Laci (00:10:05):

Oh, you think they were at least trying to give some humanity to it? I don’t know. Because I don’t

Matt (00:10:10):

Think so. I don’t know if they’re trying, but that specific thing that he says-

Laci (00:10:15):

Yeah, it’s true. I mean, yeah, it almost seems like it slipped through the cracks.

Matt (00:10:20):

And because they’re not identified as a specific people, but he says, “You need to exit the Persian Gulf, so

Laci (00:10:25):

It’s

Matt (00:10:26):

Like you’re Iraqis.”

Laci (00:10:27):

Right.

Matt (00:10:27):

And we were waging economic warfare on Iraqis at the time.

Laci (00:10:31):

Well, and every time they’re speaking, it says speaking in Iranian or whatever.

Matt (00:10:35):

No, it’s Arabic and lots of different countries speak Arabic.

Laci (00:10:39):

I know that. I just thought I kept seeing Iran, Iran. Nevermind.

Matt (00:10:46):

I don’t know. I think yes, it’s not a good look. I also think that you can have … I’m doing this James Bond podcast with Wade where they also have the trouble of like, who do we pick for villains? Because it’s always, when the Cold War was on, it’s like we can do Soviets or we can do Soviet breakaways or we can do … So it’s like, so who’s going to be a terrorist? Is it going to be an Arab? Is it going to be a renegade Russian person? Is it going to be … And the movie’s attitude is like, just go with it. It’s fun. It’s like a throwback.

Laci (00:11:19):

Everything just needs to be Thanos at this point or something because it can’t be anyone here. Yeah. I mean, I feel like a bummer, but how I understand colonialism now and after reading the Fort Bragg book-

Matt (00:11:33):

The Fort Bragg Cartel by Seth Harp.

Laci (00:11:35):

Inside the military and in undercover every man, he could be right next to you. He’s killed a million people. It used to be cool and now I don’t think it’s cool.

Matt (00:11:47):

Yeah. For me, there is … I know I’m watching propaganda and I can appreciate it as a fun movie, but sometimes I see a movie like Warfare, the movie last year where I think this is evil. This is disgusting. And so it’s not like I blanket apply that to every single movie I see. You shouldn’t get your lessons about geopolitics from movies, but I understand that movies do play that role of making it all seem cool and okay.

Laci (00:12:17):

I guess there’s just a couple times where Arnold goes super hard against the person he’s trying to get past and I’m thinking, “I was just a doorman.” You didn’t have to break his face. Sometimes you could just walk around the people aren’t … I think

Matt (00:12:30):

That the movie’s having fun at the expense of the government of like, “This is ridiculous how much you’re pouring into this and look at the destruction and this guy’s going to jump over, jump a horse across buildings. This is stupid.” And they spend millions of dollars of taxpayer money on this guy being obsessed with his wife maybe having an affair. As we know, this kind of shit happens all the time. That’s all that they do, in fact.

Laci (00:12:56):

I mean, if you had the resources.

Matt (00:12:59):

And James Cameron, one of the giant reasons he’s my favorite filmmaker is because the avatar movies have what I think are the only good politics among Hollywood movies. So I think he does kind of have this anti-imperialist streak in him that you can see if you squint in this movie. All

Laci (00:13:13):

Right, then I’ll squint.

Matt (00:13:14):

But at the same time, it’s also celebrating all this cool badass stuff.

Laci (00:13:19):

Yeah. I think it’s clear who’s supposed to be the good guy here. Even the bad girl is of color. Couldn’t she have been white? But then you wouldn’t have had a person of color in the movie. What you said about- It was her name Tia Pera.

Matt (00:13:33):

What you said about Thanos that really hit home, and maybe we’ve discussed this before, is like, yeah, that’s why we end up with fucking aliens destroying the earth because now we’re like, “Well, we don’t want to be specific about anything and as a result, we don’t have human beings in movies anymore.”

Laci (00:13:49):

Yeah.

Matt (00:13:51):

So this does start with Arnold Schwarzenegger purchasing the rights to the movie, to Lato Tal and bringing it to James Cameron. They had made two movies already together, Jim Cameron and Arnold, they’re friends. So he gets his buddy, Cameron on board, and James Cameron then hires a team of writers to write the script and then fires this team of writers. This is the thing he starts to do. He runs a writer’s room for his movies and then gets rid of them and just uses all of his own ideas.

Laci (00:14:16):

Oh, so that makes me understand. He’s a person who knows what he wants by seeing what he doesn’t. That’s just a type of person they are not fun to work for.

Matt (00:14:24):

Oh yeah. Yeah. Everybody who works with him seems to love him, but he does not seem fun to work for. But you can tell. Yeah, how long he takes for it with everything, I think it’s exactly what you just said. He is looking for ideas that he does not like.

Laci (00:14:39):

He’s not a visionary. He’s a contrarian. He’s like, “I know I want something cool.” Not cool, not cool, not cool, not cool, my idea.

Matt (00:14:46):

Not cool.

Laci (00:14:48):

Not funny. Yeah.

Matt (00:14:50):

James Cameron, I believe the only time we’ve covered him on the show before was Terminator two way back in 2020. We weren’t doing proper history segments back then, but we’re not going to go too much into him. We’ll just situate you in his career. First movie is Perana Tu, The Spawning in the early ’80s. He’s just a hired gun, but he’s like, “Oh, this guy seems like he knows his way around, knows the technical stuff, knows how to direct a movie.” And the famous story about how he makes Terminator is … The famous story he tells is he got sick and had a fever dream of a metallic torso dragging itself away from an explosion. And then he writes a script out of that, says he was inspired by Halloween. By John Carpenter’s Halloween, I can make a movie for very limited budget, sort of slasher film.

(00:15:35):

And then he sells that script to Orion and to producer Galen herd for $1 if he is allowed to direct. They do that. Hire Arnold Schwarzenegger, movie’s big hit, 1984. Makes aliens two years later, the sequel to Alien, the famous story about that, and he’s a great at mythologizing himself.

Laci (00:15:55):

Truthfully, is he a trusty,

Matt (00:15:58):

Trustworthy

Laci (00:15:59):

Name?

Matt (00:16:00):

Like the best storytellers. It’s who can tell? Who knows?

Laci (00:16:04):

Consider taint me, Jimmy.

Matt (00:16:05):

That he went into the meeting with 20th Century Fox to pitch. So you say you want to make a sequel to Alien. Tell us what you got. And he just walks up to a chalkboard and writes Alien, looks over at the executives, turns around, writes an S, looks back over at them and they’re like, “We’re listening,” and then turns that S into a dollar sign and that’s how he gets the job for Aliens. That’s the story.

Laci (00:16:27):

I love it.

Matt (00:16:28):

Alien’s big hit follows that up with the abyss, a famously tortured, disastrous over budget production that if it would have been a bigger hit than it was, would have all been worth it, but it wasn’t. So he has to go back to the well and makes a sequel determinator and it is an era defining blockbuster, makes him, along with Steven Spielberg, the most powerful director in town.

Speaker 3 (00:16:48):

Oh God.

Matt (00:16:50):

So now it’s on the heels of Terminator two. His production company, Lightstorm Entertainment, signs a $500 million deal with 20th Century Fox for two movies with unprecedented budgets and freedom creative control. And those movies are true lies and Titanic.

Laci (00:17:04):

Did they make their money back with true lies?

Matt (00:17:06):

They did. It made almost 400 million worldwide. I think at the time, yeah, viewed as like, oh, unquestionable success. Then Titanic is like, oh wait, that’s what James Cameron movies are actually supposed to make.

Laci (00:17:20):

Right, right. Oh, don’t do that in your mid-career. Say that for the end, big boy.

Matt (00:17:26):

Yeah. But nobody was unhappy. It’s just like, it wasn’t a Terminator two level hit either, but everybody liked it.

Laci (00:17:33):

And it’s a darling though. I don’t think anyone could watch it and not like it. It’s like speed or point blank. If you don’t like it, because you haven’t seen it yet. Wait, wait. I named two things that are by the same guy though. I didn’t mean to. No,

Matt (00:17:45):

Those aren’t. Speed and point break. Point break is Catherine Bigelow, James Cameron’s ex- wife. And speed is Jan DeBont, director of Twister.

Laci (00:17:55):

Twister, right. He creates reasons to hug a guy. Hug a good, good guy. See, I brought this up because our boy is in this movie. It’s all connected. Bill Paxton.

Matt (00:18:06):

Yeah, Bill Paxton, very good. James Cameron’s one of his best friends. And always until Titanic, just when he’s in a James Cameron movie, plays a slimy, disgusting worm.

Laci (00:18:21):

It’s like James Cameron doesn’t know he’s attractive. I find him very attractive and twister.

Matt (00:18:26):

Yeah. And he met him as like a … He wasn’t an actor. He worked as a production assistant or something in Texas. That’s how he got to know Bill Paxton. Bill Paxton is at the beginning of the first terminator. Oh man, it’s a fucking Terminator something. And then in Aliens, he plays Hudson. I mean, Hudson isn’t a disgusting warm, but he’s like the coward of the Marines who

Laci (00:18:45):

Panics. Right. And he’s coward in this movie too. It’s just like, Jesus, I’m feeling some kind of way about what you keep making me do here. Question. For me, if an actor is ever told in a movie during the course that like the acting part, the story that they have bad breath, I think about their bad breath beyond the movie. So do you think that when a actor has to proclaim me as a little dick in a movie that then we just think Bill Paxton has a little dick for the rest of our lives?

Matt (00:19:14):

I think Bill Paxton has the confidence knowing he does not have a small dick to say that.

Laci (00:19:20):

So he’s Bill Packing is what you’re saying?

Matt (00:19:22):

Packs packing, yes.

Laci (00:19:23):

No, what I did was fine. I

Matt (00:19:25):

Love the idea that James Cameron is making his good friend say, “Oh my God, a small dick man.” And be himself. Yes, multiple times. But then three years later, he gets to play James Cameron in Titanic, basically.

Laci (00:19:37):

Oh, here’s your big fucking prize. You’re me.

Matt (00:19:41):

But in the biggest movie of all time. Yeah, but in the wraparound

Laci (00:19:44):

Story, you give the shit.

Matt (00:19:46):

Oh, he’s lazy. But him on the boat. No, he’s lovely in Titanic. Put him on the boat. And the woman who plays Rose’s granddaughter is the woman who then marries James Cameron in real life. And the movie suggests she’s about to go marry Bill Paxton in the movie too. His life and his art is all just intertwined. I

Laci (00:20:04):

Appreciate that. He’s like Roseanne.

Matt (00:20:06):

His story about making Titanic is like, I saw the story that they went down to the Titanic and filmed the documentary and thought I’d like to go down to the Titanic. I guess I’ll write a movie about it. That way Fox will pay for me to go see the Titanic.

Laci (00:20:16):

He’s a tax cheat. I got it.

Matt (00:20:18):

Yeah. It is on the set of true lies. Again, Fox has written him an enormous check. So what a movie studio does is they assign a producer from their end to go be on set permanently to oversee you. That’s the studio’s executive producer.

Laci (00:20:31):

Fun.

Matt (00:20:32):

Their guy is, his name is John Landau. And this movie’s going way over budget and this John Landau guy is supposed to reign Cameron in. Instead, he becomes Cameron’s best friend, quits Fox and joins Cance Cameron’s production company, becomes his right hand man, produces Titanic in the

Laci (00:20:44):

Avatars. Okay. It seems like a lawsuit. Honestly, if he was there to serve the interest and then he just like, no,

Matt (00:20:50):

It’s okay.That’s just business.That’s how it works. You get plucked from like-

Laci (00:20:53):

I don’t mean that. I mean that he was not actually overseeing their best interests.

Matt (00:20:58):

I don’t

Laci (00:20:59):

Know if that’s actually- No, Matt, it’s what you’re saying.

Matt (00:21:02):

Meanwhile, Arnold Schwarzenegger, I think check out our Jingle All the Way episode where we go deep into Arnold, but let’s refresh. How do you feel about Arnold Schwarzenegger?

Laci (00:21:11):

Where I know him from is twins in kindergarten cop, and because I know him that way, I loved him. Then I watched Junior and loved him less. And then I saw his action stuff. I didn’t know he was an action guy. There’s action in all of those movies, but I thought he was a comedian.

Matt (00:21:28):

That’s your history, but today. You think Arnold towards an egger and you’re like, “Yeah, I like that guy. I think he’s cheesy. I what? “

Laci (00:21:35):

He’s not the kind of person that’s going to make me go watch a movie just for the sake of it, but he seems nice, seems genuinely nice as the person for some reason to me. The smile and the wrinkles around his face that he laughs a lot. It’s always bothered me when he’s a love interest because I think I’m supposed to think he’s good looking and I find him so unattractive.

Matt (00:21:56):

Really?

Laci (00:21:57):

Yes. I mean, he’s perfectly fine looking, but leading man sexy, not at all for me. And I don’t like muscles.

Matt (00:22:05):

It’s hard for him to be … It’s impossible for him to be in every man.

Laci (00:22:09):

And every man, right? And the joke

Matt (00:22:10):

Of true lies is that my boring husband’s a spy.

Laci (00:22:13):

The woman with fucking …

Matt (00:22:17):

In the same way that the joke is like, “My frumpy wife, Jamie Lee Curtis.”

Laci (00:22:22):

They do a good sexy baby. A good job of making her look frumpy in the beginning. I’m like, “God, that’s good. That stupid fucking haircut.” And then it turns into the cutest haircut ever.

Matt (00:22:31):

So he is in this phase of his career where he’s doing the family friendly blockbusters that Laci just said. He has his eighties run of action classics. Terminator two then is like this crossover. It’s an R-rated action movie, very violent, but kids can see it because it has Edward Furlong on screen. And suddenly he’s like, “Oh, okay.” And he starts making the family-friendly blockbusters. True lies is kind of the height of his powers and it’s a long steady decline after this. He never returns to being this popular.

Laci (00:22:59):

What do you think happened? I

Matt (00:23:00):

Think that his style of movie fell out of fashion.

Laci (00:23:03):

Yeah.

Matt (00:23:03):

You

Laci (00:23:04):

Think he needs a big budget to look good?

Matt (00:23:07):

No, I think that his bread and butter was sort of the lower and mid-budget movies, and those fell out of favor for bigger spectacle driven movies. And Sylvester Salon talks about this. The guys with muscles got replaced by special effects. We used to be the special effects ourselves. But the other thing is I think he made movies that like Eraser and The Sixth Day that when you look back did make a lot of money, but nobody remembers them. So maybe it’s just he stopped making as good of movies. Although I like both of those

Laci (00:23:39):

Movies. I do think he needs a good director or someone to help. Because in Jingle all the way, he’s supposed to be funny, he’s supposed to be this every band or whatever, but the director doesn’t seem to know how to make him actually funny and make his jokes land. I know, don’t come at me. It’s just that movie could be funnier because in this movie, he’s very funny.

Matt (00:23:58):

He

Laci (00:23:59):

Just needs a moment for the time he needs a couple of takes.

Matt (00:24:02):

And in kindergarten cop and twins, Ivan

Laci (00:24:04):

Wrightman- It’s funny in both. …

Matt (00:24:05):

Is a comedy director who knows how to work with Arnold.

Laci (00:24:08):

Yes.

Matt (00:24:08):

In the summer of rock series last year, we compared the two and Arnold was always willing to work with directors who could tell him what to do. And at least until the smashing machine, which we still haven’t seen, we promised we would see that. The Rock never did. But that is where Arnold is right here. Jamie Lee Curtis.

Laci (00:24:27):

Look at that Fox.

Matt (00:24:28):

Obviously, she has her Scream Queen Run with Halloween and then Terror Train Prom Night, The Fog. So Trading Places is like, oh, okay, you’re more than just a scream queen. So she’s in more mainstream stuff. This movie Perfect, which I’d never heard of was a-

Laci (00:24:44):

Never heard of it.

Matt (00:24:45):

… was not a hit upon release, but she became a sex symbol because of appearing in all these ads in this health club outfit. Okay. If you say so. 1988, a fish called Wanda, a great movie. She’s a great comedian in it, and that’s what Cameron says made him decide he wants her. And I always forget about this. She was in a sitcom for four years on ABC, Anything But Love starring her and Richard Lewis. Oh

Speaker 3 (00:25:11):

God.

Matt (00:25:12):

But I think she entered the Cameron orbit because she was in Catherine Bigelow’s movie Blue Steel in 1990, which is a great movie where she plays a cop. It shows that she can be an action badass too. James Cameron and Catherine Bigelow were married from 1989 to 1991, and then they kept working with each other after that. But I think that’s probably where she entered that orbit. Catherine Bigelow, director of Point Break and then CIA movies. So James Cameron says he always wanted to cast Jamie Lee Curtis. She is the obvious fit, but Arnold Schwarzenegger was skeptical. So there was- Just

Laci (00:25:48):

So hot.

Matt (00:25:49):

That is exactly

Laci (00:25:49):

What he’s- I know. I watched the thing you did.

Matt (00:25:51):

Oh, I didn’t know that. Well, don’t spoil things.

Laci (00:25:54):

She’s so sexy. Get down.

Matt (00:25:57):

Take the sexiness down. Now he’s talking about his penis. Get down. James Cameron was interviewed by Vanity Fair last year and he said, quote … It’s a good interview. He just goes through all of his movies and he’s only made like eight movies. So goes through each of his movies. He’s talking about True Lies. “What was interesting about the movie was finding Helen. First person that came to my mind was Jamie Lee Curtis. So obvious in retrospect, right? She crushed it. But Arnold said,” I don’t think so. I didn’t hear it from him. I heard it from his agent. Arnold doesn’t want Jamie. She’s too beautiful. I don’t buy her as a housewife. “So now I start seeing every actress of that age who could conceivably play Helen. Met a lot of great actresses, narrowed it down to a couple, did a few screen tests.

(00:26:37):

But I watched a tape of one of Jamie’s movies again and I was sure she’s Helen. I flew back to LA and called Arnold for a meeting. I asked him,” Do you trust me? “And he said he did and I told him it had to be Jamie. He said,” Okay, got up, shook my hand and walked out. “It was a bit frosty, but it was cool. He accepted it. He worked with her and she just became Helen. He came up to me after three days of shooting and said,” I was wrong.

(00:27:01):

“But I do get it and it does take me a few minutes in the movie to accept that she’s supposed to be of unattractive housewife. But when we talked on our, when Harry Met Sally episode about how you can just have your, you didn’t need digital deaging, you could just have your actors play younger versions of themselves and they can convince you through the skill they have called acting. And Jamie Lee Curtis is a great actress and she can convince you that she’s a frumpy housewife. Even if she doesn’t have the wardrobe that helps you convince it, she is just playing her like an unattractive-

Laci (00:27:35):

Right. The way she stands. She’s really good physically and she’s really good. Also my cousin Bethany just has a way of being awkward, but then also elegant and she’s got both.

Matt (00:27:45):

Yes. And part of the movie’s like, just go with it sort of energy that I think succeeds is like, why is she able to just look at herself in a mirror and be like, ” Okay, I’m going to be hot now and then make herself hot. “I don’t know, but-

Laci (00:28:01):

They’re smart. They’re smart because they’re like, ” You need to act sexy. “So she just starts acting it and then just kind of those tits, man. Those tits will-

Matt (00:28:10):

The whole movie is about Artifice. It’s about playing. Everyone is just playing a role. Even Tom Artold is playing multiple roles. He’s like, ” I’m the guy in the car, but now I’m commanding this whole squadron of army fighters. What? I don’t know. Just go with it. Just act confident. If you enter the House of Dignitaries, just like start barking orders at the wait staff and everybody will accept you. “And Jamie Lee Curtis, absolute smoke show in this movie. My God. 36 years old at the time when the movie came out, she was universally acclaimed. She won a Golden Globe for it. I would’ve given her the Academy Award. That’s right.

Laci (00:28:47):

Wow. Who is she in this picture kissing?

Matt (00:28:50):

Arnold Schwarzenegger. What? We’re looking at a picture from Arnold and Jamie Lee Curtis from last year.

Laci (00:28:57):

Oh, I see it now, but wow. Wow, wow, wow.

Matt (00:29:01):

One of the cool things she has talked about in recent years is like Arnold being very gracious about the billing for the move. Arnold Schwarzenegger, because of his last name on the posters of all his movies, it’s just such a specific name, and you would just put Schwartzenegger, not even his first name, and it would cover the entirety of the poster. And he’s like, ” Well, this is an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie. It has to just be Schwarzenegger, true lies. “Obviously that’s what it has to be. So what she said last year at an event when she and Arnold both attended, they were both making projects for Amazon, making movies for Amazon. So Amazon has this event, each of them comes out and then they run into each other on stage like, ” Oh yeah, you, me, trruelize. Everyone loves true lies. “She gives him a big old kiss on stage and everyone goes fucking nuts.

(00:29:47):

And then she gets on the mic and she says,” Let me just say this because I’m here with all y’all because of this man, I have the career I have. “So Jim writes the part for me. We shoot the movie. So we make the movie and you know, they cut it together and we finished it in April. It came out in July. I mean It was a really fast thing. I remember I was at home and I got a phone call and it was James Cameron and Arnold. Jim said to me, “Jamie, I’m sitting here with Arnold in my office. I’ve just shown him the movie. It’s about a married couple.” And in the contract it says Arnold Schwarzenegger In True Lies, starring Jamie Lee Curtis. And Jim said to me on the phone, “I asked Arnold if I could put your name above the title because it’s a movie about a marriage and I think it would be appropriate.” And Arnold, a figure who clearly did not have to say yes, said yes.

(00:30:28):

Well,

Laci (00:30:29):

He said more than yes. He said it would not be good without Jamie.

Matt (00:30:33):

Yeah. So James Cameron said his side of the story was, “Jamie had gotten with Agent a deal where they could ask for above the title with Arnold and the credits. And I said he’s never going to agree to that. Her agent said they’d be satisfied if I asked him during post-production like a best effort thing.” I asked Arnold, “Would you consider putting Jamie’s name above the title with you? ” There was a silence and he said, “Jamie is spectacular in the movie. The movie is what it is because of her and I’m honored to have her name above the title with me.

Laci (00:30:57):

” So in the poster that I’m looking at, why isn’t it there?

Matt (00:31:00):

Yeah. Well, first of all, just to explain, above the title, all of this goes back to theatrical productions where you’d put the big star and then moving into early cinemas, Humphrey Bogart in the Maltese Falcon or whatever, then they drop the in, but they still let the word in, but they still keep the biggest actors in the movie’s title, then the rest of the actors. And this equates to money and status and stuff. So on the poster, they still have Schwartzenegger. If you then read that credit block down at the bottom of the- Trying. … of the page, and I have the DVD here, which also reproduces it. It’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Curtis, True Lies. I feel like, yeah, it’s a sort of middle ground they went with on the marketing materials that’s going to be presented as a Schwarzenegger movie, but contractually and in the movie itself, it’s Arnold Schwarzenegger, Jamie Lee Curtis, True Lies, which was a … He didn’t put the ladies above the titles before this.

(00:31:59):

All right. The allegations against stunt coordinator, Joel Kramer, Eliza Dushku, who plays Dana at age 12 in this movie, she said that she was sexually assaulted during the production of this movie by the stunt coordinator. She made these allegations in January of 2018. So a couple of months into the Me Too movement. I want to say, reading this coverage from the time, it did take me back. There was a different … There was so much more of a like everybody is feeling empowered and we’re really trusting people to speak out that I feel like has entirely gone away.

Speaker 3 (00:32:35):

Oh

Matt (00:32:35):

Yeah. Where if she had just said this like four years later, it probably wouldn’t have even made news. And if it did, people would be like, “Oh, who knows what to believe? There’s so much.” I mean, what we learn every single day about like Jeffrey Epstein, but at the time she said, “To be clear, over the course of those months rehearsing and filming True Lies, it was Joel Kramer who was responsible for my safety on a film that at the time broke new ground for action films. On a daily basis, he rigged wires and harnesses on my 12-year-old body. My life was literally in his hands. He hung me in the open air from a tower crane, a top and office tower, 25 plus stories high, whereas he was supposed to be my protector. He was my abuser.” She said that all of … She’s filming these stunt scenes after the abuse took place and after she said she reported it to a person who she doesn’t name who worked on the movie.

(00:33:24):

And she said after that, his attitude toward her changed and he became very cold and then she has to go up on

(00:33:30):

The crane and he is in charge of her safety up there. He, Kramer was a very accomplished stunt coordinator, worked with Arms Schwarzenegger a lot, like a total recall, kindergarten cop. He had not worked … These allegations Eliza Duchoop made in 2018. He had not worked since then until last year when he worked on a movie called Code three starring Rain Wilson and Lilrell Howery. At the time, everyone was very supportive of Eliza Duchu. Tom Arnold tweeted, “I promise you, Jim Cameron, Arm Schwarzenegger, Jamie Curtis would have done something to protect you basically. We all love and are proud of you Eliza Duchu. Arnold Schwarzenegger then replied, Tom, you bet your ass all of us would have done something I’m shocked and saddened for Eliza, but I am also proud of her. Beyond being a great talent and an amazing woman, she is so courageous.”

Laci (00:34:21):

Gave me goosebumps.

Matt (00:34:24):

So that unfortunately, very sadly, is part of this movie’s legacy and maybe Joel Kramer is now working steadily again. Who knows?

Laci (00:34:34):

Look, how

Matt (00:34:34):

Sweet.This is an AI

Laci (00:34:37):

Gymnast.

Matt (00:34:39):

If you Google any hypothetical sequel, you will get some slop. Oh,

Laci (00:34:43):

All

Matt (00:34:43):

Right. Oh, you want to see True Lies two with an aged Arnold and an Aged Jamie? Yep, here it is. Yeah. The most expensive movie ever made was a big hit. After Cameron was finished with Titanic, he and Arnold Schwarzenegger, Angie M Lee Curtis and Tom Arnold all agreed on a sequel. It’s an obvious thing. True lies too. And the movie sets it up even. Two lies or whatever. But James Cameron is being very deliberate, taking his time, working on a script, and then nine eleven happens and they’re all like, “Ooh, do we want to make a movie about terrorism?” Although why would it have to be about terrorism? It’s just about fun spies. But I think because of nine eleven, the movie sort of disappeared from TV. And then in 2003, Arnold Schwarzenegger becomes governor and he’s like, “If there’s going to be a true life sequel, I have to wait till I’m done being governor.” And then Tom Arnold sort of becomes the Dan Akroyd of True Lies.

(00:35:35):

Well guys,

Laci (00:35:36):

Come on guys. We’ve got to get this together.

Matt (00:35:38):

What Akroyd is to Ghostbusters, Tom Arnold is to the true lize sequel.

Laci (00:35:41):

Remember how I had that one movie and I remember like being in it and then they were happy.

Matt (00:35:45):

Wonderful. And I think he’s good in a lot of stuff. Tom Arnold is

Laci (00:35:49):

Good. Oh, what else is he

Matt (00:35:49):

In? He’s good in that movie. I always talk about Big Bully with Rick Moranis.

Laci (00:35:52):

Oh yep, yep, yep.

Matt (00:35:54):

But I think the biggest thing stopping is James Cameron got sucked into the gravity of Avatar and he’s never … Although the way he talks about it recently, it seems like he wants out. He wants to go back to making true lies. Hey, I hope he never leaves. I would love for him. I don’t want a true life sequel, but I would love for him to just make an action movie.

Laci (00:36:12):

And even with those three.

Matt (00:36:13):

Oh, I’d love it. I would love-

Laci (00:36:14):

But just not true lies.

Matt (00:36:15):

Yeah. But I love the Avatar movie so much. But I think even he’s like, “I know I said I’m only making avatar movies for the rest of my life, but can I make a movie with real people in it, please?”

Laci (00:36:25):

I’m blonely.

Matt (00:36:27):

This is the history of True Lies. We’re going to now talk about the movie itself, discuss and review it. If you are listening on the podcast feed, just keep listening. If you’re watching us on YouTube, subscribe to the podcast wherever you listen to podcasts link in the description.

Laci (00:36:39):

Thanks. This episode has already dropped, so you can just pick up where you left off.

Matt (00:36:44):

Pick it up off the ground. Ooh, what’s this an episode? Okay.

Laci (00:37:21):

I have a bombshell to drop for this episode. People aren’t going to like it.

Matt (00:37:27):

Go ahead then.

Laci (00:37:28):

I just don’t like Arnold. I don’t like

Matt (00:37:30):

Him. Yeah, that’s dumb. Well, I mean, come on, man. What about when he says- He’s

Laci (00:37:36):

Not self-deprecating enough in this movie. That’s what bothers me. I like it when he’s a fish out of water. He’s efficient. Can we just talk? Can we just do the podcast?

Matt (00:37:43):

We are.

Laci (00:37:43):

I’ve got points.

Matt (00:37:45):

Oh, you mean can we just begin in Lake Chapeaux, Switzerland? Not a real

Laci (00:37:50):

Place. How would you be great?

Matt (00:37:51):

Do you think that … I mean, this is supposed to be Davos. This is the World Economic Forum and they’re just having a party with- You

Laci (00:37:56):

Think so?

Matt (00:37:56):

… shakes and oil tycoons and defunct royal families of Europe.

Laci (00:38:00):

I just thought every party looked like this, that for diversity, you need a little bit of every kind of tycoon.

Matt (00:38:08):

And you have a kernel.

Laci (00:38:10):

Yeah, I don’t-

Matt (00:38:11):

These are supposed to be just the evil of the top of the-

Laci (00:38:14):

I did. I do. I do get the axis powers. I did get … This has something to do with military. I guess I don’t know what Davos is. I thought Davis was just all the billionaires meet and touch

Matt (00:38:29):

Dicks.That’s what it is. I mean, this movie. Yeah, it’s not your kind of movie because you don’t like Arnold Schwarzenegger and you don’t like James Bond. And this movie is like a-

Laci (00:38:40):

Whoa, whoa. Those are big words. I love the Thomas Crown affair. You told me that’s not James Bond. How dare you. And I like Arnold Schwarzenegger in certain roles. I don’t find him handsome. And the movie thinks he’s handsome. And I know lots of people think he’s handsome. I get it. I see that he’s an attractive person. He’s just not at all. He’s like polar opposite what I would like.

Matt (00:39:06):

Well, yes. I think that I hear you. I think that you’re valid. This opinion is valid.

Laci (00:39:13):

Yes.

Matt (00:39:14):

And I don’t agree with it, but I do see what you see in this movie is him doing just straightforward, likable. And I do think he’s really good in this movie.

Laci (00:39:24):

I think he was very well directed. He’s the funniest he’s ever been in this movie and it’s still not enough for me. Wait,

Matt (00:39:30):

You don’t think he’s funnier in comedies like Kindergarten Copper or Twins?

Laci (00:39:34):

I’m too far out from that. I love both of those movies.

Matt (00:39:36):

Or jingle all the way. You know how I feel. Put my

Laci (00:39:38):

Cookie down. Okay. He’s the joke in twins and his physique is the joke. I like a Fish Out of Water. He’s a Fish In Water here. And even the movie is like … And Tom Arnold helps you through it because he’s like, “Oh, how’d he get a fucking horse?” I mean, oh, he tangoes. At least he’s speaking for us, but this whole movie is like, look at him, go. He’s so majestic.

Matt (00:40:03):

No, the comedy doesn’t come from him. And I think he’s good as a straightforward action movie, veering just a little bit on parody of this kind of character in the way that … It’s not that I think Arnold Schwarzenegger is an attractive man. He’s a parody of an attractive man.That’s too attractive so much so that you can’t exist in the real world.

Laci (00:40:22):

Yes, he doesn’t make sense in the real world. But with Jamie Lee, they do an amazing job of making her look dowdy in so far as that’s possible, because the transition she does is fucking amazing. Where he, when he’s going to go take her out for lunch, and so he’s in a cubicle away, and he stopped in the hallway. I would not miss a man that size. Yeah, he just turns

Matt (00:40:49):

Around and she walks by and she’s not like, “Oh, there’s that seven foot nine German man that I’m with all the time.” But as I say, I said in the history section, thing about this movie is the movie knows that you know it’s stupid and that’s why it’s smart, but I can understand if that doesn’t work for you.

Laci (00:41:08):

I guess this movie feels like a Disney ride version of this movie. There’s just a lot of action sets and really long action sequences and James Cameron is good at filming action. I’m following it very well. I understand. It’s taking me on a journey. This man loves a hotel lobby, but I’m more of a story person. God, I sound so lame.

Matt (00:41:30):

I don’t like when you say story because action is

Laci (00:41:33):

Story. I like your studies.

Matt (00:41:39):

No, I think that the craft of this movie really appeals to me. And maybe I overrate … Action is my favorite genre and maybe I overrate it when I think something is just immaculately constructed. I feel the joy of accomplishment of how in this movie of how ridiculous it is that we’re doing all this stuff. Why does every single action sequence need to escalate to the place that it does? That’s fun to me. The special part of the movie is sort of the middle chunk where Jamie Lee Curtis is now very involved and playing a double agent. I wish the whole movie was that because I think that just the straightforward action parts are fun and good because James Cameron directs it, but I don’t think they transcend

Laci (00:42:20):

Anything. I like Arnold much better when him and Jamie are together because I like her so much and she’s so relatable, even though she’s the most fit thing I’ve ever seen in my life. And I felt this way ever since I was a kid. I do not like the hotel scene. I love her dancing. I love her transformation. I love what she can do. I don’t like that there’s a guy sitting there watching her who’s lying about who he is. I don’t like what he is pretending to be and I don’t like that he’s pretending to be something period. And then when he tells her to lay down on the bed, I am so grossed out and he puts the rose on her and I’m just like, “Oh, fuck sick.” That whole part is so disgusting to me. And I think it’s supposed to be this big highlight of the movie and it’s what everyone remembers and I remember it, but I don’t know if I’m supposed to feel like he’s the most disgusting man in the world because that’s how I feel.

(00:43:17):

All right. We’re jumping all

Matt (00:43:19):

Around. We are jumping. I think there is a read of this movie where this is about a freak who realizes I’m only sexually attracted to my wife when I’m getting cooked by her. And so he has to like self cook by playing another man literally in the room with her using another man’s voice to get himself turned on by

Laci (00:43:39):

His wife. He likes to cook when the end of it is, “I was pretending you creep and oh, you really love me. I’m your husband.” Twice it happens.

Matt (00:43:49):

Let’s start with Lake Chap host Witzerland. It’s a big party. So Laci doesn’t like Arnold Schwarzenegger or James Bond.

Laci (00:43:55):

What the fuck again? Stop saying that.

Matt (00:44:01):

But you like the Thomas Brown affair. I do. But this movie is such a tribute to James Bond movies and this opening sequence is so James Bond.

Laci (00:44:07):

That gets lost on me. I get it. I get it. I guess, yeah, you don’t like a mastermind and I don’t like a guy that can’t fail. I’m not saying it’s not fun to watch. It doesn’t sustain me. He’s not a charm bomb to me the way that Liam Neeson is or Jason Statham or someone that I can just watch, talk and talk and talk. He is way more charming to me than the rock. For instance, if we’re going to … Of all the hulking men, he’s my favorite probably, maybe Batista. But he’s got range. You can tell he’s worked very hard to have some range, and I appreciate that about him. But I need charm with my man who knows everything, and he’s not my kind of snake.

Matt (00:44:56):

Is charming everyone at this … Well, although is he? He’s not. He’s getting away anything. He’s sharming everything everybody like, “Oh, the wait staff, this shouter is terrible.” But he’s just moving through. If you act like you belong, you’ll just float through life. Oh, Carnel, so good to see you.

Laci (00:45:13):

Do I know that coach?

Matt (00:45:14):

Yeah. And then Tia Carrey sees her. We last met Ms. Carrera in Wayne’s World, learned on that episode that she’s a Grammy winner for her Hawaiian music albums. And here she plays Juno Skinner, an art dealer.

Laci (00:45:25):

How tall is she? Why does she look this tall next to him?

Matt (00:45:28):

Look it up. Five foot eight.

Laci (00:45:30):

Okay. So she’s just in the highest heels right now or stepping up on a step while he’s, because he’s six two, six … Sorry, I need to know.

Matt (00:45:43):

Six two.

Laci (00:45:43):

All right. He’s got six two energy.

Matt (00:45:48):

They tango because this movie is a tango.

Laci (00:45:52):

On my second watching, I’m like, this is why they put tango and everything. It’s the easiest fucking thing to do. It’s the easiest hard dance there is. It’s just really sensual. You only have to have a couple moves and you just need to look … I don’t know why I’m singing it to you,

Matt (00:46:07):

But- Yeah. And you just hold each other’s butts and make your butts smash into each other and you put a rose in your mouth. There’s

Laci (00:46:12):

Not butt smashing. There’s just a lot of dramatic, you need to take the entire dance flow. I’ll be taking this. Thank you.

Matt (00:46:18):

So you would be good at it.

Laci (00:46:20):

I’d be excellent at it. Whoa. Okay.

Matt (00:46:24):

Now you would. You have a lot of-

Laci (00:46:26):

I’m

Matt (00:46:27):

Still cooking. Yeah. You do the very dramatic motions with your body.

Laci (00:46:31):

Damn straight, I do.

Matt (00:46:32):

Like Cosmo Kramer. And now our 15 year old is just a miniature you now and it’s just there’s two of them in the house people. I wish

Laci (00:46:38):

You were miniature. The bitch is taller than me.

Matt (00:46:40):

Okay, but there’s two of you in the house now. Yeah, it’s a

Laci (00:46:43):

Problem.

Matt (00:46:43):

You team up against me. You’re like bleep. What do you think about what he just said? And then they will say something and I’ll say, it doesn’t count. They’re just your double.

Laci (00:46:53):

But they do agree with you sometimes.

Matt (00:46:55):

No, just to seem fair.

Laci (00:46:56):

But they are fair. So just that I’m right a lot.

Matt (00:47:01):

Sure. It’s a

Laci (00:47:02):

Problem.

Matt (00:47:02):

It’s

Laci (00:47:03):

A problem for you.

Matt (00:47:04):

So you don’t like this opening sequence.

Laci (00:47:06):

No, no. I don’t mind it. I don’t mind it. My problem with the movie, and I gave it a four in Letterboxd. The problem with this movie is that watching it the second time is where it went down for me because it just … I know where it’s going. I know it’s going to have three different places where it feels like we could end and I know it’s not going to sustain my energy and interest. I’m going to want to play a game on my phone because that’s how I ended it the first time. So there’s something not propelling me through everything. So the second time was even more like, oh, we’re only halfway. Oh my God.

Matt (00:47:41):

They have to steal some files from a guy and they do. And then they get chased out of there. Oh, they’re going to make it. They do. They get back to Washington DC. Tom Arnold. Laci, could you name Tom Arnold’s character in this movie?

Laci (00:47:53):

You mean like what’s his name?

Matt (00:47:54):

What’s his character’s name?

Laci (00:47:56):

Henry?

Matt (00:47:57):

It’s Gibb, short for Gibson.

Laci (00:47:59):

Gibb. Oh God. Yeah. But I do really like him in this movie. I could watch more movies with him in it for sure. I also like the other guy. I don’t know his name.

Matt (00:48:09):

Feisal, Grant Heslove, who we last met in the summer of rock in your favorite movie, The Scorpion King. Oh

Laci (00:48:14):

Yes. Yes,

Matt (00:48:16):

He is. No, you hated that movie and it drove me crazy.

Laci (00:48:19):

No, I know. I’m just saying I remember him.

Matt (00:48:20):

And that’s when we realized, you know what? He’s very annoying as the sidekick in that movie, but annoying sidekicks are necessary. We need to bring them back in movies.

Laci (00:48:29):

I just like that the sidekick has a sidekick in this movie. And I think that they are funny and they are very normal looking and they’re working with a very abnormal looking person who is just the most statuesque and poised. And he can do everything. And he’s got the higher ranking job. It seems like he tells Gib what to do more than Gib does the reverse, although I’ll bet they’re kind of … But those two guys are so … They love him, but they’re sick of it too. So there’s really funny … I love when they pretend to tango with each other. That’s hilarious. Anyway, all those things work for me.

Matt (00:49:08):

As we see, and I think both Arnolds have a lot of chemistry with each other, Arnold and Arnold.

Speaker 3 (00:49:14):

Oh my God.

Matt (00:49:15):

And the movie’s doing a thing like actually he’s his actual spouse. Gib is Harry’s actual spouse because he’s remembering all … You forget something,

Laci (00:49:26):

Honey. What a team.

Matt (00:49:27):

Yeah.

Laci (00:49:27):

Yeah.

Matt (00:49:29):

And yeah, obviously, way more excited to be with this man with Tom Arnold. And says, “All right, pick me up at eight o’clock tomorrow morning, which is in like three hours.”

Laci (00:49:36):

Right. Meeting’s at 10:00.

Matt (00:49:38):

Yeah. And then goes inside and we see Jamie Lee Curtis is his wife and she’s a frump and a half.

Laci (00:49:45):

But she’s so nice.

Matt (00:49:46):

She is nice.

Laci (00:49:47):

There’s every opportunity for her to be mad at him. And I guess we just don’t get to see enough of their relationship to know why she’s so forgiving. But if this is what he’s like on a daily basis, and it’s all just about his sales job, I don’t know how you plan an entire birthday party, fall asleep at the birthday table, and then when he gets home, be like, “It’s okay, Harry.” Is

Matt (00:50:09):

It? That’s why it’s like, is this movie trying to be like a parody of 1950 sitcoms? Because the wife is asleep at the kitchen table waiting for the husband to come home to a bunch of balloons and a birthday cake she made.

Laci (00:50:22):

It is over the top in every depiction of a role. Even the teenage daughter, rock round. Tom Arnold. I remember the first time I was shot out of a cannon.

Matt (00:50:36):

That’s so good. Well, he’s- I can’t

Laci (00:50:38):

Even say it. It’s too funny. But stealing and getting on the back of a motorcycle and not listening. I’ve got headphones on. Rock out. Even her, even she’s over the top.

Matt (00:50:49):

Whenever I think about the movie, I’m like, that’s so stupid. And the final, what does she do? Oh, bad news, Harry. You know how you have a daughter? She was kidnapped. Oh, no.

Laci (00:50:56):

No, I ruined

Matt (00:50:57):

It. I meant to

Laci (00:50:58):

Spend time with her.

Matt (00:50:59):

And you could totally cut out that last section of the movie, except it’s good. And Eliza Duchu is good when she’s up there on the crane. And Sudleen’s like, “Oh, that’s why they got a real actor to play this stupid kid role.”

Laci (00:51:11):

Who

Matt (00:51:12):

Totally forgot exists.

Laci (00:51:13):

Well, and the way she is, even though it’s typical teenager, is completely viable because she knows her mom is in a loveless marriage. She’s not getting anything out of her dad either. So the way she’s acting, totally believable. It’s fine. It’s just that all of the character types in here are very broadly written because it’s just the cucumber to put the ranch on and the ranch is the action.

Matt (00:51:39):

Exactly.

Laci (00:51:39):

And down to the boss. It’s like, come on guys. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s the boss. So who are we going to be to be his boss? Just a caricature of a boss.

Matt (00:51:48):

I have an eye patch. And

Laci (00:51:51):

I cannot be pleased with anything that you’re doing. All of this stuff just sounds stupid, boys. It’s just, all right then. Eye patch, calm down.

Matt (00:51:59):

It’s the next morning and she’s like, bad news, honey. The plumber quoted us $600 and he’s just like, well, that’s okay.

Laci (00:52:06):

That sounds fine. That’s okay.

Matt (00:52:07):

It’s not

Laci (00:52:08):

Fine. It’s extortion.

Matt (00:52:09):

And she says-

Laci (00:52:10):

He’s living with a different bank account than she is.

Matt (00:52:13):

Right. And she says … I mean, but come on. If you told your spouse, “Hey, this is going to cost a lot of money,” what could be better than them just being like, “Oh, it’s okay.”

Laci (00:52:22):

I would immediately suck his dick. Yes.

Matt (00:52:24):

Yeah. But she’s like, “Well, so what are you going to do? “

Laci (00:52:27):

Unless he’s bad with money and then I’d be like, “Fuck you, Harry. It’s not okay.”

Matt (00:52:32):

And she’s like, “I told him I slept with him and he knocked $100 off the price and he reacts. The worst way he can react is just go, good thinking, bye, honey,” and gives her a peck on the cheek. Neither engages with her sexy joke nor says, “What? No.”

Laci (00:52:46):

Right, right. It’s just all they’re going through the motions and she’s trying to see what she can do to get a rise out of him, which is nothing.

Matt (00:52:53):

His real partner in life comes in, Tom Arnold, he’s like, “Hey, I’m back.” And has the cigarette camera thing and is very excited to just be here and pours Arnold Schwarzenegger a cup of coffee and then they find out that-

Laci (00:53:06):

Thank you.

Matt (00:53:07):

Eliza Dushku is stealing and is only on this-

Laci (00:53:09):

She’s ripping me off. Is only on this.

Matt (00:53:12):

Who says it about their kid? Well, she’s ripping off Tom Arnold though. I always thought it was she’s stealing from her mom, but no she’s stealing from Tom Arnold’s briefcase. I thought of it. And that makes her a better kid too.

Laci (00:53:23):

That’s actually hilarious. I thought it was his wallet. I thought it was the dad. She says she’s ripping me off.

Matt (00:53:30):

No, I think it’s Tom Arnold who says that. She’s ripping me off or he says she’s ripping you off.

Laci (00:53:35):

Oh, are you sure?

Matt (00:53:38):

No.

Laci (00:53:38):

Okay.

Matt (00:53:40):

Update from the future. Folks, we have an answer. Let’s go to the tape. Who is ripped off? It’s Tom Arnold. Listen. Dana. He’s ripping you off. Dana. I knew it. All right. So they get to work. They work at Omega Sector, the last line of defense. It’s like a secret CIA, the super CIA. And Charlet Heston, who’s in only two scenes in this movie, was not in a lot of movies in the ’90s, is playing Nick Fury from the Marvel Comics. James Cameron is a big comic book fan, was developing a Spider-Man. This is intentional, but they don’t say he’s Nick Fury. “I’m Nick Fury, and I’m frankly furious. “And he immediately-

Laci (00:54:22):

And it’s intentional because they were going to piggyback off of this with something?

Matt (00:54:26):

I mean, it’s intentional in that he’s like, ” This guy is Fick Nuri. “It’s like, ” I’m not paying for the rights to the character, but this, come on. We all know who this is. “And he very notably kicks the only woman at the table away, like kicks her out.

Laci (00:54:41):

Oh yeah.

Matt (00:54:42):

And now we can talk. Okay, tell me about this mission. And so this mission, they’ve been tracking this guy, this Arab businessman who has hundreds of millions of dollars in wire transfers that are going through antiquities. And we know that antiquities are a pass through for terrorist money. And we think, Boss, we think something really big is coming up a week ago. Four Merv warheads were smuggled out of the former Soviet Republic of Kazakhstan. And he’s like, ” Are you telling me if you have anything interesting to say?

Laci (00:55:10):

“Also, wouldn’t that be the thing that kicks off this whole mission is that those missiles have gone missing.

Matt (00:55:17):

Yes, sir.

Laci (00:55:17):

Otherwise, you guys are just looking into antiquity people? What are you what?

Matt (00:55:22):

Yeah. Four nuclear warheads were stolen and that’s it. That’s what we’re going

Laci (00:55:26):

To talk about today. Right. And then we’re going to figure out who might want those from

Matt (00:55:30):

There. The war had disappeared.

Laci (00:55:33):

Tell me when they’re active, I’m an active senior.

Matt (00:55:36):

So he’s mad at them because they haven’t brought him any … Well, he screwed the pooch over in Switzerland, he says, because he made a Frank Metchifing.

Laci (00:55:43):

Well, I don’t know what it was supposed to look like because Arnold never seemed to have a plan A if that wasn’t it. Right.

Matt (00:55:49):

And what did he do wrong?

Laci (00:55:51):

Yeah, no, he went through it exactly as though he planned to make a big mess. And he had to have planted those explosive a long time ago, earlier in the day and always planned to show him his invitation pow.

Matt (00:56:03):

I guess the whole point of being a spy is you’re not supposed to be noticed, which is he’s bad spy and also not a good idea to make him a spy.

Laci (00:56:13):

Leaning into his physique.

Matt (00:56:16):

It’s like John La Corae with George Smiley. The spy is the guy who … The crowd is his friend. He disappears in the crowd. Arnold can’t disappear into a crowd. So yeah, they say, sorry, sir, we have no rock hard data. Well, perhaps you better get someone before someone parks an automobile with a nuclear weapon in front of the White

Laci (00:56:33):

House. He sound like a Simpsons character.

Matt (00:56:35):

So Khalid, he’s done a lot of business with Juno Skinner. Juno Skinner is Tia Carrera.

Laci (00:56:39):

Luckily she’s in town.

Matt (00:56:40):

She’s based here in DC.

Laci (00:56:42):

But here she is. What city is this with

Matt (00:56:44):

Her? DC.

Laci (00:56:44):

That’s lucky.

Matt (00:56:46):

He

Laci (00:56:46):

Has all the luck.

Matt (00:56:47):

He really does. Things are lining up for him. They’re going to send in Arnold. He’s a corporate art consulting firm. That’s what he does for a living. What?

Laci (00:56:58):

I thought he was procuring … Let us not discuss the … Who cares is what I’m going to say.

Matt (00:57:06):

His imaginary job here is companies that want cool art in their lobbies hire me to go around the world and find it for them.

Laci (00:57:13):

If you’re going to spend a million dollars on a piece, I guess you would want a person to tell you what to spend it on.

Matt (00:57:18):

No, that is smart. Everybody, we’re all thinking where are the jobs going to come from? We just need to think, what is a stupid way for rich companies to spend money? And then you go do that for them. So just be thinking about

Laci (00:57:29):

It. I’ll be thinking about it.

Matt (00:57:31):

We’ll follow up. So she tells him about her operation. She’s like, ” Look, I’m great with diplomacy. I go into all these countries and I get all their antiquities. They like me. “And then we see a very suspicious man. Okay, you’re all right.

Laci (00:57:46):

A great sand script.

Matt (00:57:48):

And there’s a very suspicious looking Middle Eastern man who works for her and he’s spying them, eyeing them suspiciously. We’ll come to find out this is Aziz, the lead terrorist, played by Art Malik, who is a Pakistani, not an Arab man, but he’s the lead terrorist bad guy. But I understand that it’s iffy to have terrorists who are Muslim, who are Arabs, but these guys, I mean, they’re called crimson Jihad. They don’t even seem to be radical Islamic.

Laci (00:58:21):

They don’t. They don’t even seem religious.

Matt (00:58:23):

Yeah. It’s just the word jihad, but it’s not like they just have very concrete political demands.

Laci (00:58:28):

It’s just in the 90s, if you didn’t want to use a Nazi because that wasn’t the right timeline or timeframe, you go Arab. No one was questioning it. We’d been in the fricking Gulf War for long enough that we all knew the Middle East bad.

Matt (00:58:43):

Well, I think that they probably are literally supposed to be Al-Qaeda, or at least what people would have been aware of Al-Qaeda in the mid- 90s, which is just they have a rich guy who bankrolls them and then they just have little projects they do. Oh, he was behind the bombing of the embassy and whatever last year. But they’re planning their really big one, which is nine eleven basically, but way worse. I don’t know.

Laci (00:59:10):

Well, I mean, but we do need to address it. It didn’t make me uncomfortable. This is not something that bothered me in the 90s, but I’m on the bad guy’s side of things in this movie and I can’t overlook that. So it’s very hard for me to bleed red, white, and blue during this.

Matt (00:59:25):

Oh, sure.

Laci (00:59:26):

And I think I’m supposed to. Oh,

Matt (00:59:28):

You are, but it’s interesting that they’re being way more respectful of them than I think a silly movie like this of the time usually would be. And they are not coding them as crazy Islamic radicals. Their demands are concrete and political. Get out of our country. They don’t say what country it is, but obviously it’s Iraq. Get out of the Persian Gulf, stop bombing us, stop doing economic sanctions. If you don’t-

Laci (00:59:52):

So you think James Cameron here was trying to let the audience decide?

Matt (00:59:56):

I don’t know what he

Laci (00:59:57):

Was trying to do. I don’t either.

Matt (00:59:59):

I think I don’t know. It’s interesting that they’re not as … I say they’re not as cartoonish or as evil as they could be, but then they do have the joke where the guys, he’s giving a speech in front of the camera and then he’s like, “Oh, boss, my camera doesn’t batteries.”

Laci (01:00:13):

Well, that guy’s very … I mean, he slaps the ever loving fuck out of Tia Carrera because she brought a guy into look at art and she sells art.

Matt (01:00:22):

Yeah. What is he slapping her about? Oh, you’re being careless.

Laci (01:00:26):

Yeah, she brought this person in and showed him around. I thought it was because she pretended he was her worker and was like, “Get up, don’t sit around.” And she was showing off with that group saying, “Get up. Don’t slack buddies.” I thought that’s why he was mad the first time. And the second time it’s like, “You don’t bring a guy around here. I guess they had the missiles in there or the fucking warheads or whatever the fuck.” We don’t actually know what’s in that room.

Matt (01:00:52):

Is it the missiles? I think the missiles are … Yeah, they are already there inside the statue.

Laci (01:00:56):

Because why else would

Matt (01:00:58):

He …

Laci (01:00:59):

It’s not like the eye brought a dog. If he were pretending to be blind, this is my seeing eye bomb sniffing dog, then slap her.

Matt (01:01:05):

I guess he is. I guess she is being careless.

Laci (01:01:07):

But she’s kind of flirting, right? So her guard is a bit down. She doesn’t see him as anything except for someone to flirt with at this point. She’s not suspicious of him. She already looked into him and he checked out.

Matt (01:01:16):

Yeah.

Laci (01:01:17):

So she’s on a hot date and not keeping her head in the game. This movie does throw around the word bitch a lot, like cruelly. But I mean, par for the course at that time, it’s just … Arnold is really funny. Arnold …

Matt (01:01:34):

Tom Arnold.

Laci (01:01:35):

That’s the one. But man, does he hate women? Yeah. Women can’t live what you can’t kill. Can’t live with him.

Matt (01:01:42):

Can’t kill him.

Laci (01:01:43):

Right.

Matt (01:01:45):

I hate that I keep defending the movie, but everything you say, I’m like, yeah, but it’s like the movie knows that he’s really ugly. But it also wants you to … Ugly. No, ugly. His character is ugly. I

Laci (01:01:56):

Don’t think he’s lovable. Well, then I’m feeling

Matt (01:01:59):

It wrong. The things he is saying are disgusting. And when he says, “Your daughter’s probably had so many abortions.” But he is so likable. I mean, it’s just kind of the movie having it both ways with everything. Meanwhile, Jamie Lee Curtis, she works as a legal secretary.

Laci (01:02:15):

Which now that I know it’s DC, I’m a little more impressed, Jamie.

Matt (01:02:18):

But folks, you might not know this, but back in the ’90s, you could get a job at an office where you made a decent living helping the people who worked at that office. It doesn’t exist anymore.

Laci (01:02:29):

Why are you telling them this?

Matt (01:02:31):

I don’t know. I think it’s kind of interesting to show a woman who works in an office in a not quite … Who is neither a receptionist or a girl boss. She’s just like, “I’m the support staff.” And it’s the perfect job to have for somebody who’s just like, “My life is crushing my soul.” There’s

Laci (01:02:48):

Nothing interesting. Right. He looked over and to look dowdy. You put her in a big corner office and then we see her at work and we’re like, “Dang, Jamie Lee, no matter what she’s wearing.” But she’s in all these shoulder pads with her hair looking like Aunt Beverly. And then you see her surrounded by fucking files and you’re like,

Matt (01:03:04):

“Mm.” So that day, she’s preparing her big birthday for Harry, our big birthday party. Here’s the change. She

Laci (01:03:10):

Doesn’t come home.

Matt (01:03:11):

Me and our daughter and you, Harry. Is he invited? Well, she’s

Laci (01:03:17):

Calling to confirm. I had Gib. Sorry. I still don’t know his name.

Matt (01:03:21):

Even calls him at work like Roseanne and she devil. I just wanted to tell you how excited I am for your birthday party. I count the way to Eva. Trust me, this time you can count on me.

Laci (01:03:31):

I’m your number one son. I mean, you’re my what?

Matt (01:03:34):

Yeah. Why is he saying that? Has he seen Jingle all the way?

Laci (01:03:38):

Jaime. Go down.

Matt (01:03:41):

So they’re going to … Well, Harry’s supposed to be … Harry is Arnold Schwarzenegger, supposed to be driving home to his big birthday party, but they get distracted. They see some terrorists in downtown DC.

Laci (01:03:51):

And just let me tell you, Arnold is not bothered. He’s not at all upset with himself that he’s going to be late for this party. He does not respect her at all. She is supposed to not ask questions because he’s out saving the world. And I mean, he’s just a fucking liar. And like a gleeful one. That’s the thing about terrorists. They don’t care about schedules.

Speaker 3 (01:04:14):

All

Laci (01:04:15):

Right. But you do have a real flesh and blood wife. I just said what Tom Arnold says. But you went ahead and had a spawn, right? This is the Americans, man. At what point did he tell the children?

Matt (01:04:27):

There’s not even … When she finds out who he really is, for the rest of the movie, he’s not acting like, “I’m sorry or I’m still the man you know and love. He is totally cocky about it. Yeah, that’s right, baby. I’m a spy. I kill people. ” Honey, next time, duck. There’s never the moment.

Laci (01:04:44):

Right. Right. To know that your husband is capable of so much casual lying, how do you ever … Your loins have to be moistened because he’s a fucking American action hero from Austria.

Matt (01:04:59):

This movie is just go with, just accept it. This is great though. The horse chase through the Georgetown Mall and it’s just this whole movie’s whole thing is like, yeah, we could end the whole thing after the bathroom fight, but why not get Arnold onto a horse and have him chase? Okay. And then what? Make the horse go into the hotel and then go into an elevator. And then, by the way, if you freeze frame any moment where any action is happening, you will see not Arnold Schwarzenegger. The guy riding the horse, you’re like, that is not Arnold Schwarzenegger. They

Laci (01:05:35):

Don’t even try to hide it.

Matt (01:05:36):

Right.

Laci (01:05:36):

Yeah. When our mutual Paul, he did a whole thing on the side by side 4K of true lies. And I think that was one of his big points was like, I mean, they don’t even try. And then when in 4K it’s even more obvious that this is not

Matt (01:05:52):

… And the 4K, this got a lot of criticism. It does look … I’m not great at noticing these things, but it does look really shiny, like really glossy. I don’t know. It does look a little strange to me. I can’t quite put my finger on it. But one of my favorite moments in the movie is him getting in the elevator with the horse.

Laci (01:06:10):

Elevator up.

Matt (01:06:11):

The other two people, the old couple in the elevator and the wife is like, “Say something.” And that’s a fine animal. Good enough. But then he looks over at his wife like, nailed it.

Laci (01:06:23):

I’ve said something, dear. Great. What does she want him to say? I don’t know. This is our floor. Please let us off. I mean, I wouldn’t be freaking … You get kicked by a horse, you go and die.

Matt (01:06:33):

My mom is always telling my dad to say something. So I think

Laci (01:06:36):

It’s just this thing. It’s a very your mom and dad moment.

Matt (01:06:40):

Gets up to the top of the skyscraper to chase Aziz. Aziz jumps on his motorcycle to the nearby skyscraper.

Laci (01:06:47):

That man loves jumping through glass.

Matt (01:06:49):

But then what’s great, and I do remember the first time I saw this movie just laughing with Glee, because you think, “Oh, this is the kind of movie where he will jump on that horse from

Laci (01:06:59):

Building

Matt (01:06:59):

To building.” And the horse is like, “Fuck no.” Right. The horse would have

Laci (01:07:03):

Broken its legs. You know what they do with a horse with broken legs?

Matt (01:07:05):

It ain’t pretty. Now folks, you might think, now wait a minute, I thought DC had height ordinances. There can’t be 50 high skyscrapers. What is he doing? Well, this is at the Weston in Los Angeles. Same location that they filmed, the ending confrontation and in the line of fire between Clint Eastwood and John Malkovich. It’s just a fun little hotel factor

Laci (01:07:25):

And buddy.

Matt (01:07:26):

And you’ll notice in the screenshot I have right here, you can see DC monuments in the background, even though in the previous shot, there are skyscrapers across the street from them. Oh. They’re doing a little cheating.

Laci (01:07:38):

They’re getting a little cheat sheet.

Matt (01:07:40):

And he goes home to his birthday party. His wife is asleep. No alcohol insight. I’ve passed out at the kitchen table waiting for my poor husband to come home. We find out what the deal is with Crimson Jihad in Charlton Heston’s only other scene in the movie. And about our main bad guy, Aziz. They call him the sand spider. Why? Why?

Laci (01:08:00):

Sounds scary.

Matt (01:08:01):

Probably because it sounds scary and he’s just like, mm.

Laci (01:08:03):

Okay. Great. And so

Matt (01:08:05):

You’re like, okay, so this is a movie about the Crimson Jihad. That’s what it’s going to be. And then the movie does a very strange thing and gets off the interstate at a different movie. Actually, no, the movie’s about something else now.

Laci (01:08:16):

Right. It’s just the day-to-day life of a man who forgot he’s married.

Matt (01:08:21):

Yeah. And then remembered.

Laci (01:08:22):

And does the Cardinal send of, let me go surprise my wife at her job. That’s not the move, man. There’s phones. Call ahead.

Matt (01:08:32):

You know what? Let’s just end that at no one ever needs to be surprised

Laci (01:08:36):

By

Matt (01:08:36):

Anything.

Laci (01:08:37):

Surprised. I feel like this movie is only to make someone go, “That’s right, bitch. At any moment, I could pop out. I feel like he’s doing spy stuff to her.”

Matt (01:08:44):

Who wants to be surprised by anything? Oh, wow. All my friends are at my house. Great. Yes. What

Laci (01:08:48):

If you just farted in your cubicle? Now he’s walking up to romantically invite you to lunch. Oh, wafting? Wafting?

Matt (01:08:55):

Yeah. So he walks in. Oh, I have to apologize to my wife. I’ll take her to lunch.

Laci (01:09:00):

She’s never eaten before. Not with me.

Matt (01:09:03):

Goes in. This giant Austrian man just, but they don’t notice him.

Laci (01:09:09):

Taller than any cubicles ever made.

Matt (01:09:11):

But wait a minute. Something’s going on with her. She gets a phone call. Yes,

Laci (01:09:15):

But she gets it from her friend. I don’t understand. Why is this woman taking her calls? Is she the receptionist of the cubicles? I guess

Matt (01:09:23):

So.

Laci (01:09:25):

When you look over at her, she’s just also in a cubic. What is she doing? I noticed on the second watch. You just need the conversation back and

Matt (01:09:32):

Forth.

Laci (01:09:32):

Yeah,

Matt (01:09:32):

Yeah. Your hot, sexy mystery man’s on line one. Oh, really? And then she rushes out to go meet her sexy mystery man and Arnold Schwarzenegger has to hide, which she does by turning his face. Turning

Laci (01:09:44):

Around.

Matt (01:09:45):

So he goes outside and he’s walking like Charlie Brown and he goes up to Tom Arnold, “My wife is having to fail.” And you’re like, “Ah, great, buddy.That’s great. That happens to the best of us.” You know what we’re going to do? We’re kind of concentrate on- Concentrate on work. We’re going to beat the crap out of some terrorists. Women can’t live with him, can’t kill him.

Laci (01:10:05):

So see, Harry is under the … She seems to very much love him. Whatever part of him she gets, she loves it. And he also seems to really love her. So I guess I am a little confused about, he seems distant with the, “Oh, I guess I’m going to be late. She’ll forgive me. ” But then he’s crushed that she would cheat. And it doesn’t seem like Helen doesn’t have it in her. It doesn’t seem like that. It seems like, but we have a special connection. Our relationship is special. It does not make sense that she would cheat. So there is some kind of story we don’t know.

Matt (01:10:41):

You think that that’s what he thinks that our relationship is too special for us to … I

Laci (01:10:44):

Think it’s-

Matt (01:10:45):

I think

Laci (01:10:45):

He’s heartbroken. I don’t think he’s like, “But I’m a manly man. I don’t get cheated on. ” She’s my pushover wife. She doesn’t get to have an opinion in her life. I don’t think he thinks any of those things. I think that’s why when she says what she says while she’s being interrogated through the two-way mirror, it means something to him. And he does a whole thing to give her a mission.

Matt (01:11:04):

I think he understands he does not pay attention to her and that he maybe deserves this.

Laci (01:11:12):

Sure. But you can also not think you’re … She’s only ever saying reassuring things to him. She’s only ever understanding to him. He has a completely different understanding of how much he’s pushed her into being bored and being unappreciated and not being needed. She used to have the kid to distract her and at least she could raise the kid, but it was very important for her to say, “I like to be needed. No one needs her.” Harry’s completely self-sufficient and they just all have three separate lives in that house.

Matt (01:11:43):

And I even think when she says that, it was nice to be needed and trusted.

Laci (01:11:48):

And trusted.

Matt (01:11:48):

That she doesn’t suspect her husband is living a different life, but it’s like she psychically feels it. She feels that he’s hiding from her, even though she could never say that. So it’s like he is doing just damage to her by-

Laci (01:12:00):

Right. He always seems to come home and have the most superficial things to say. He doesn’t seem to offer any information. And that’s the spy in him. You don’t offer. If you’re asked a question, you have an answer, but that’s hard to live with a person like that who’s constantly withholding and you have to ask them, “How was your conference? How was your day? How did the meeting go? ” It’s like, I’m sick of interviewing you. And every time you answer, it’s, “Oh, wow, gee whiz. I really knocked out of the park and oh my God, boy did they love it. And we were the head of the town.” Okay, guess you don’t have any human problems. Bye.

Matt (01:12:34):

Yeah. And I mean, he is probably sexually neglecting her.

Laci (01:12:40):

I don’t know when they’d have time to have sex.

Matt (01:12:41):

That’s what I mean. But as a consequence of just feeling just excitement and just a thrill of the lust for lunch. If

Laci (01:12:51):

You don’t ever fall asleep at the same time in the same bed, in the same house, and if you’re constantly disappointed with him, she’s not trying to give him sex in the middle of the night as a reward for him disappointing her constantly. She’s like, “I can be understanding and accepting of your crazy job for whatever reason is fulfilling to you. So that’s just what we’re doing, but I’m not also going to make sure that we have sex as well. That has to be earned.” And emotionally earned.

Matt (01:13:19):

Yeah. And she didn’t frump up herself overnight. This is a long process

Laci (01:13:25):

Of her not thinking about herself or buying new clothes for herself or thinking about herself as young. She had a kid and it’s really easy to have a kid and feel like that’s it for me. I’m the old generation, but we see she’s not.

Matt (01:13:42):

They are eating a very scary dinner as a family. He just stares at her, “I can’t visit you Atwa today.” And then she launches into a lie and suddenly he’s like, “Huh.”

Laci (01:13:53):

She’s good at lying

Matt (01:13:54):

Too. Wait a minute. I do love his face as he suddenly realizes I can be lied to. Wow. So he goes back to work, pulls the resources of the federal government off of the hunt for the stolen nuclear weapons and onto my wife might be cheating on me. And Gibb says like, “We can’t put a wiretap on her, an unauthorized wiretap.That’s a felony.” He’s like, “Yeah, we do it 20 times a day.” So the movie is acknowledging this is not good things these people are doing, these agencies are doing. But this is how we meet Simon. And I really love the way we’re introduced to him. We’re introduced reading a printout of what he is saying as we hear Bill Paxton saying it. And then we see him with just this dumbass mustache.

Laci (01:14:37):

It is that mustache and that stupid haircut are doing a lot because he is an attractive person. Look at me. I’m not much to look at. You’re

Matt (01:14:44):

Not? Yeah, you

Laci (01:14:45):

Are. I looked at you a lot and twist her.

Matt (01:14:48):

Arnold steals her purse so he can put a tracker in it.

Laci (01:14:52):

He fucking sows into the lining a tracker, a battery, of this, of that. That’s got to be 14 pounds of stuff. When I don’t have my phone in my … My phone’s maybe almost a pound.

Matt (01:15:04):

Yeah.

Laci (01:15:04):

When I don’t have it in my purse, I know I don’t have my purse. I pick it up.

Matt (01:15:08):

Something’s wrong.

Laci (01:15:09):

The three gold bars I usually carry around are not in this giant purse.

Matt (01:15:13):

But she’s just so aloof. She meets him at a Chinese restaurant and he’s like, “Hey, you weren’t followed.” And she’s like, “No.” And like you taught me, I kept looking behind myself to see if I was being followed. Oh, you’re a natural at this. So he’s got to bring her in on a mission. She’s the only one he can trust in Arnold Schwarzenegger and Tom Arnold are listening and like, oh my God, the guy’s a spook, but for whom?

Laci (01:15:36):

And that always makes me think that they are stupid because he does not set, we call it an up. It’s a covert up. He’s not talking like a spite. He’s not talking like them. He’s telling a civilian his life. That’s number one, the thing you can’t do.

Matt (01:15:50):

They figure it out very quickly though.

Laci (01:15:51):

Fine. But for them for even a moment to be like, “He just spoke.” Izzy.

Matt (01:15:57):

Because the intelligence superstate is so vast that you can never … We’re an omega sector. We know how we talk, but we don’t know how those guys over at DIA talk.

Laci (01:16:08):

And if he’s trying to work her to get to him, I guess you can say whatever you want. What a shot.

Matt (01:16:15):

So Schwarzenegger’s like, “Okay, I got to go check out this guy because he’s not who he says he is. In fact, he’s a used car salesman. So he acts like he’s in the market for a used car and Bill Paxton is immediately so sleazy. He’s like, I know why you want this car. You want it for pussy.” Face it, man, the vet gets some wet.

Laci (01:16:32):

Okay. You had to say both the lines.

Matt (01:16:35):

I just appreciate the movie being R-rated.

Laci (01:16:37):

Oh, for sure. But I’ve always been confused by the ass like a 10-year-old boy comment. Why

Matt (01:16:43):

Is that what you want? It’s the strangest line in any movie.

Laci (01:16:45):

And it stayed with me my whole life. That’s what they like.

Matt (01:16:49):

Me too.

Laci (01:16:49):

A 10-year-old boy’s

Matt (01:16:51):

Ass. I think it’s surpassed only by one other moment of strangeness that we will get to in the last two minutes of the movie that I always think about.

Laci (01:17:01):

Okay.

Matt (01:17:01):

So yeah, the vet gets him wet.

Laci (01:17:03):

Got it.

Matt (01:17:04):

Now, here’s the thing about me. You got to get women wet somehow if you don’t have a vet. What I do, I tell him I’m a spy.

Laci (01:17:11):

No.

Matt (01:17:11):

And Arnold’s just like-

Laci (01:17:12):

He doesn’t give it away, right?

Matt (01:17:14):

I know. I’m condensing things.

Laci (01:17:16):

Oh, okay. Sorry.

Matt (01:17:17):

But he says a thing that Arnold needs to know about his wife is like, “What do women want? They want adventure. A hint of danger.” This is something I had to learn about Laci. She needs that hint of danger.

Laci (01:17:27):

Sometimes he just dangles me off the roof just because I’m looking bored.

Matt (01:17:30):

Blanket. And you’re like, “No.” But you want it. What?

Laci (01:17:36):

Are you talking about fucking Drew Berrymore right now?

Matt (01:17:39):

It’s talking about Michael Jackson.

Laci (01:17:40):

Oh, because she dangles from a blanket and your favorite dangling scene.

Matt (01:17:44):

I do like that scene.

Laci (01:17:44):

Blanket. What are you talking about? Drew Braymore says that that way.

Matt (01:17:50):

I’m not a blanket.

Laci (01:17:51):

Somebody give me blanket. He’s about to shoot me out this window.

Matt (01:17:55):

So he creates the danger for them. It’s playing a role. It’s fantasy. What about the husbands? Trust me. If the husbands weren’t taking care of business, I’d be out of business. You don’t think aren’t sports nickers funny here? Those idiots.

Laci (01:18:08):

That’s not what I’m saying. I think he’s funny in a bunch of different places. I’m just saying it’s not enough to sustain me having the same excitement all the way through the movie.

Matt (01:18:19):

Okay.

Laci (01:18:20):

Just isn’t there.

Matt (01:18:21):

And so Bill Paxton, just sorry, I have to say all of this. Her thighs steam. It’s like a dying planet. It just needs a little water. She’s like all these babes. You get their pilot light lit. They could suck start a leaf blower.

Laci (01:18:34):

Jesus Christ.

Matt (01:18:35):

She’s got the most incredible body. Pair of titties Mickey want to stand up and beg for buttermilk. Ass like a 10-year-old boy and then Arnold Sportsnicker punches him in the face and makes him gust blood. But that’s only in a fantasy. So maybe he only says the 10-year-old boy line in the fantasy.

Laci (01:18:50):

I don’t know. I think that’s the time you want to punch him.

Matt (01:18:54):

Helen meet him under a bridge. Harry and Gibb and the entire federal government are now in pursuit. They have helicopters and stuff following them. They follow them to his trailers like, “We got to go to my trailer. My penthouse in Manhattan’s unavailable at the moment.” And he wants her to go away with him where they can pose his husband and wife. And she’s like, “I don’t know. ” And he’s like, “Well, we’re going to have to practice kissing.”

Laci (01:19:17):

He’s intimate with it. This is how husbands and wives are, right? Just so fucking into each other like this. Just kiss a lot. I don’t think so. I don’t think they do a lot of PDA, especially not in her marriage.

Matt (01:19:28):

Yeah. What if we just, we need to hold hands, be comfortable holding hands.

Laci (01:19:31):

We need to argue about small things in front of strangers.

Matt (01:19:34):

Yeah. You don’t need to pray hate. You’re

Laci (01:19:38):

In the kitchen a lot with these strangers.

Matt (01:19:42):

Is the movie trying to make you think that she has had sex with him already or? No.

Laci (01:19:48):

I don’t know. I’ve never thought she was having … Why would you think that?

Matt (01:19:51):

Because it is kind of a reveal. She is not having an affair. She is being worked by this guy. And when it makes the transition into we need to be physical with each other, she then pushes him off. And I don’t know. I kind of think that maybe is supposed to be a surprise to the audience.

Laci (01:20:10):

Not at all. I mean, we don’t know how she’s going to react. She’s gotten this far, right? But no, in no way do I think, because she’s not sexual with him. He says to get her head down and then she’s so uncomfortable when he puts her head in his lap. If they’ve already fucked, then she’d be like, “Oh, I know what she wants.” I mean, it’s a new romance. You’re not going to be coy down there like, “What’s the dick for? ” No.

Matt (01:20:34):

Yeah. I guess because her coworker says, “Hey, that mystery man-” Get something for me too. … that it’s everybody projecting and you might think, oh, she’s feeling that way too, but she’s really not. Anyway-

Laci (01:20:48):

Well, she was dabbling. She was seeing if she’d be comfortable with it. She said she was going to go to France. I’m sure in the back of her head, she’s like, “I could do this. ” But at no point did it ever feel … She already has a guy that lies to her all the time. She can tell, I think there’s a part of her that’s like, “I don’t need this. I don’t need this. This isn’t what I need.This isn’t a step up.”

Matt (01:21:10):

Oh, that’s interesting. But before anything can really go far, they raid the place and they literally just slice off his wall and go in and abduct both of them and-

Laci (01:21:23):

Hit her in the head.

Matt (01:21:25):

Take her to a black site, a very terrifying black site and Tom Arnold Arnold Warsenegger hide behind glass and disguise their voices and start- Asking

Laci (01:21:34):

Her questions that make no fucking sense for anyone to have ever asked, but she answers them.

Matt (01:21:39):

Who do you work for? But she worked for Stern, Grumpler, and Kesnick.

Laci (01:21:42):

She’s great in this scene though. She’s really good at getting aggravated and being sincere, being embarrassed, all the things.

Matt (01:21:52):

And the movie has made it so that Arnold is under the impression that she has been having sex with Bill Paxton.

Laci (01:21:58):

Yeah. The position that they find her in, it’s hard to not think that that’s what’s going on.

Matt (01:22:02):

So it is a surprise to him through learning through this interrogation that she has not. And then at most she just thought, maybe I was a little excited, but that’s only because I just needed something. I needed to feel alive, wanted to do something outrageous and to be needed and to be trusted. And she says, “Yes, I do. Well, there’s only one thing you can do. You need to work for us and we’ll give you a mission one day. We’ll call you and we’ll call you Doris.”

Laci (01:22:32):

Thank you. I’m so glad. I’ve been passed around from liar to liar to liar. I love it. All right. Now they got to go deal with Simon and this is when James Cameron makes his best friend tell the world that he’s got a tiny dick and then piss himself.

Matt (01:22:50):

Yeah. I love, there’s no need to kill me. I haven’t seen your face. And as he’s saying this, he’s unmasking. Oh

Laci (01:22:54):

No. Hey man, then he’s like, “Hey man, you still want that curve.” Why do you think that this is

Matt (01:23:01):

A coincidence? I’m not a terrorist. I’m actually a complete coward. If I ever saw a gun, I’d oh no. See? So yeah, now he’s out of the movie, unfortunately. And Doris, Jamie Lee Curtis, Helen gets her mission. She’s told, “Go to a hotel and dress sexy and you will then act like a French…” No, just a prostitute. Just a prostitute. You’re a prostitute named Marissa or whatever. Go to the room to see this arms dealer.

Laci (01:23:26):

Your name is Doris. He’s going to call you Marissa. What the fuck? No, Marissa said you’d like me or something. I’m Doris or something like that.

Matt (01:23:33):

Now, Doris is her spy code name. Ooh. Her prostitute identity is Michelle.

Speaker 4 (01:23:38):

Ah.

Matt (01:23:39):

Go to the room, see the Arms Delia’s particular taste. He likes to watch and you also have to plant the bug in the telephone by the bed before it’s too late. So there’s a tick and clock to the mission as well. And she’s walking up to the hotel room and sees herself in the mirror and she’s like, “Wait a minute, I’m not hot. Why don’t I just do a few alterations?” And she turns herself into-

Laci (01:24:00):

The biggest smoke show that you’ve ever seen.

Matt (01:24:02):

Yes. Yes, she does. And she is quite sexy. And again, this is fucking stupid. She goes into the hotel room, Arnold Schwarzenegger. She doesn’t realize it’s her husband because he’s sitting slightly in the dark and is talking to her.

Laci (01:24:16):

I saw your shoes, socks, pants, and upper body. I’d fucking know it was you.

Matt (01:24:21):

Or you’d smell me or feel me. That feels like Matt’s in this room.

Laci (01:24:26):

Yes. I

Matt (01:24:27):

Can tell because he’s not sitting

Laci (01:24:28):

Right. That energy. Why is that man slumped over and breaking that chair? I thought you’d be over it by now.

Matt (01:24:35):

Look at the floor in this room. Matt’s probably stepped on it because he doesn’t step right.

Laci (01:24:39):

Okay. But I can tell you when you’ve done something wrong. I need to feel open and free to just tell you what I think.

Matt (01:24:45):

Feel free anyway. Okay. So it’s all stupid, but the movie knows you know it’s stupid so it transcends and becomes fun. Unless you’re lazy and then you don’t.

Laci (01:24:55):

No, no, no. Her dancing is fun. It is

Matt (01:24:57):

Fun.

Laci (01:24:57):

It’s when they cut to his face and I’m like, “Eh, eh,

Matt (01:25:01):

Press.” Yeah. It is hard to think of him as a sexual person.

Laci (01:25:05):

Yes. Yes. The same way the rock is. He’s not suave like that. He’s not horny like that. I don’t … Yeah,

Matt (01:25:14):

Because this is supposed to be, this character is suddenly like, “Oh fuck, I’m married to Jamie Lee Curtis and she’s really hot.”

Laci (01:25:21):

Right. Is he about to fuck her in this bed? Yes. Is that what’s supposed to happen? This is a mission they’ve done before. It’s even got a name. The French tickler, whatever the fuck it’s called.

Matt (01:25:30):

I guess so.

Laci (01:25:31):

Because

Matt (01:25:31):

They have a Frenchman there to record dialogue

Laci (01:25:34):

For it. They do indeed.

Matt (01:25:35):

And she fillates the bed post and he’s just like, “Oh no, my God.” Even he wasn’t expecting this. Yeah, she is incredible. Give her the Oscar for this scene because it is simultaneously super sexy and super funny and it tells a story. It tells how afraid she is, but suddenly like, “Oh, I might be a little okay at this. ” I also got to do the thing with that tracker. And then as soon as Terry’s about to reveal himself, Crimson Jihad bursts in. Why? How did they find them?

Laci (01:26:03):

I don’t know. Yeah, that’s unknown. They really wanted to take this experience up to the next level.

Matt (01:26:08):

But it’s great that she’s like, “Harry, leave him out of this. It’s about me. Let me handle it, Harry.” Yeah. And so they’re pulled onto a plane with Tia Carrera and flown to the Florida Keys and he’s like trying to … She’s not really my wife. She’s just some crazy bitch.

Laci (01:26:23):

A fucking bitch.

Matt (01:26:24):

A wacko.

Laci (01:26:26):

What a prostitute whore bitch.

Matt (01:26:28):

Who I met at the hotel bar. We should cut her loose.

Laci (01:26:30):

Oh yeah? Then how?

Matt (01:26:32):

It’s so funny.

Laci (01:26:34):

And then Tia Carra’s like, “I’m starting to think she’s…” No shit. Tia. Fucking moron. Juneau, bitch.

Matt (01:26:42):

And they give them both shots that make them instantly pass out for the flight. I guess rich people have these shots you can take to just like, “Hey, want to jump start, want to jump ahead 10 hours a time? Great. Take a shot.”

Laci (01:26:53):

But it’s not like Tia Carrera took one. She just wanted them to be good on the flight.

Matt (01:26:57):

Okay. Yeah. So it’s only for other people.

Laci (01:26:59):

Yeah. It’s not like they all have the mantis person who goes, “Sleep.” Yeah. Sleep.

Matt (01:27:03):

Or that you can flick her into your severed self and your severed self can take the flight.

Laci (01:27:09):

Right. Oh God, that would be perfect. I need to get a severed person really soon.

Matt (01:27:14):

So they go down to the Florida Keys to this compound, the Crimson Jihad compound where they have the four priceless, ancient Persian statues, each of them with a nuke inside of it.

Laci (01:27:24):

It is very fuzzy as to why they need all these people. If this were real, they would’ve killed the Y. I mean, they’re trying to kill people. Why just kill the wife?This is all very complicated. Well,

Matt (01:27:35):

They’re keeping the wife alive so that they can give him hairy motivation to do what they say. And then they need to keep her alive. Yeah, they need to keep her alive as leverage. It’s impeccable.

Laci (01:27:44):

It’s perfect.

Matt (01:27:45):

Because they need to know what he knows. So they take out the nuke and people have been saying like, “Lady, your husband’s a spy.” She’s like, “No, he’s just my silly husband. He’s just a goof aside. Come on. “

Laci (01:27:56):

How does he know so much about computers?

Matt (01:27:59):

And I like that the way that it becomes real for her is that the terrorist is like, “Hey, husband. Hey Harry, what is this? ” And he then just unloads a bunch of information about nuclear weapons.

Laci (01:28:10):

After pretending that he doesn’t know what it is a bunch, and then that’s when he’s like, “I’m going to kill her if you don’t tell me what this actually is.

Matt (01:28:17):

“

Laci (01:28:17):

Yeah.

Matt (01:28:18):

But I like that it is him suddenly revealing like, “Sorry, honey, I know lots of shit about nuclear weapons.” And that’s when she’s like, “Oh shit, I don’t know who he is. ” And all he can say is, “What did I say? I must buy.”

Laci (01:28:34):

I’m a horrific liar.

Matt (01:28:36):

Oh, well, she punches him. Then she punches him. And then Aziz Athers- How can

Laci (01:28:39):

Make it look easy to punch?

Matt (01:28:41):

Yeah, punching’s fucking hard and it hurts.

Laci (01:28:43):

It’s hard to punch.

Matt (01:28:44):

Aziz gets on camera and he says the Americans have starved our women and children, bomb us from a safe distance like cowards. And yeah, pull out of the Persian Gulf or we will nuclear annihilate an American city to demonstrate our capability, but also our mercy. We’re going to explode a nuke on this uninhabited island so you can know we’re serious. That’s

Laci (01:29:03):

Actually very nice.

Matt (01:29:04):

They tie up Helen and Harry. They have all these torture implements. They get this jigsaw doctor to come in and give him sodium pentathal.

Laci (01:29:11):

It’s like anyone could have given me this guy. He didn’t need to be the crazy old man that built fucking Pinocchio to come in here.

Matt (01:29:17):

But it is my favorite moment. My favorite Arnold Schwarzenegger acting in the movie is him on the Truth Salem.

Laci (01:29:23):

Yeah. Look at his face. He’s the least looking like him ever

Matt (01:29:26):

With

Laci (01:29:27):

That. He looks relaxed. He looks like a human.

Matt (01:29:29):

Yeah. Are we going to die? Yep.

Laci (01:29:33):

So much.

Matt (01:29:35):

And I love this too. So how long have you been a spy, et cetera? Have you ever killed anyone? And he goes, “Yeah, but they’re all

Laci (01:29:43):

Bad.” It’s just fun. It’s interesting that this movie gives each of the characters this moment to get almost a hundred percent certainty that the other person is telling the truth about something you need to know in order to carry on your relationship. It’s a little bit pat.

Matt (01:29:59):

Or no, it’s It’s like the lament configuration. Every piece in place, assemble it and open the pleasure centers of the universe. The terrorists, they’re going to blow up the thing. Arnold gets away. He undid his handcuffs. He gets his wife out. Now she can see that he kills like a hundred thousand men. And there’s the thing where-

Laci (01:30:23):

She drops a gun and kills 100,000 men.

Matt (01:30:25):

Yeah. But she does have the moment where she realizes like, okay, I need to help too because we’re in the Florida Keys. They can use the causeway and then they can get anywhere in the United States, no customs or borders or anything. Whoa, my God. So she’s now invested in saving the universe, but they kidnap her again. And Harry gets on a helicopter. Yeah, she’s great at being in peril, great at being sort of olive oil. And Tom Arnold comes and picks him up in a helicopter and now the two of them just have total operational command of every government agency and all the military and cops.

Laci (01:31:03):

And he can fly this fucking weird hybrid military only copter plane. Sure. But it’s like a billion dollar machine, but just let him fuck around in it.

Matt (01:31:14):

It’s been 10 years and he’s a little rusty, but as he’s struggling to take off Tom Arnold, it’s like that is a classic Harry Trasker takeoff right there, folks. I mean, what do you think of the causeway, Chase?

Laci (01:31:25):

It’s good. It’s very straightforward. Ha ha. Get it?

Matt (01:31:28):

I get

Laci (01:31:29):

It. Okay, great. I like the needing to punch someone a few times so that you can get out the roof. And I don’t know, I like the, oh, this car’s going crazy and is it going to … I don’t know. It’s simple, easy to follow. She looks awesome. Her tits couldn’t be better. And she’s still awkward in that fun way that makes her fun to watch. She’s not impeccable. And like a Sandra Bullock kind of way. There’s a clumsiness that I really like.

Matt (01:32:00):

Yeah. It is all very straightforward, but they’re using real, like they’re shooting on real locations. There is a real gap in the bridge that they film on, that they push a van over. Nobody’s in the van when they do it, but you can feel it. This all feels much, it hits much harder than …

Laci (01:32:19):

Well, and we have a causeway and it looks a lot like this because it’s side by side like that. So that also is …

Matt (01:32:25):

And the idea of a car that’s out of control, the driver is dead and the car is just hurdling down this bridge where you can like a bowling bumper bounce from side to side.

Laci (01:32:34):

Right. Well, that’s where living with the causeway come … It’s really called the causeway where we live and it’s the longest bridge over water in the world. And so it takes a half hour to get over it. And there’s no way to not picture yourself going over the railing. The railing doesn’t seem high enough.

Matt (01:32:49):

Yeah.

Laci (01:32:49):

It just doesn’t. And a water death is like top tier, scary shit. So this having, looking just like it and just picturing exactly what I never want to happen, which is I’m going to see if I can hit the side a bunch and not have anything go wrong. So works for me.

Matt (01:33:08):

Yeah. You’ll just be like a billiard ball going from one side to another.

Laci (01:33:11):

I mean, I’m fine with that. I just don’t want to be like a tennis ball.

Matt (01:33:14):

You won’t be. And

Laci (01:33:15):

Go, okay.

Matt (01:33:16):

You’ll be fine.

Laci (01:33:16):

Okay.

Matt (01:33:17):

He saves her. They have a big epic kiss in front of the nuclear explosion

Laci (01:33:21):

Because

Matt (01:33:21):

It’s cool.

Laci (01:33:22):

Firewix.

Matt (01:33:23):

And so he pulls her out of the car in the helicopter and the movie like dissolves on this incredible action shot as if the movie is now

Laci (01:33:31):

Over. It’s going to end. And then the kiss looks like it’s going to end. And then, I’m sorry, it’s Dana. Who?

Matt (01:33:37):

Yes. It is … Dude. It’s so weird.

Laci (01:33:41):

Cameron.

Matt (01:33:43):

They try to tease it by having Aziz look through his wallet and be like, hmm, a daughter. Of course.

Laci (01:33:49):

Just let go, Jack. Let Rose live the rest of her life. We don’t need this.

Matt (01:33:54):

And you know what? It’s pretty cruel of Harry to be like, to not tell his wife. Our daughter’s been kidnapped. He jumps in the

Laci (01:34:00):

Jet. Why? Right.

Matt (01:34:02):

Jumps in this Harrier jet, takes off as a classic Harry Trasker takeoff.

Laci (01:34:07):

Well, I mean, it just goes to show you, okay, even if it has to do with our daughter, all of this that we just went through has changed nothing.

Speaker 3 (01:34:15):

We’re

Laci (01:34:15):

Going to go back to our lives where you’re not going to let me in on anything because you can’t, right? Because I don’t have the clearance. I’m still just your fucking frumpy wife. Now you know I can dance sexy. Maybe you’ll come home for dinner every now and then. Whoop did goddamn do. You think now because Dana knows that you do stuff for a living and I do too, that we can be like, “Bye, dad.” No, now we’re just going to fucking be scared until you come home. We know that when you come home and you’ve bloody, you killed a guy. You’ve just ruined our lives in a whole new way. And even when it’s our daughter, you’re not going to tell me.

Matt (01:34:51):

That’s why I think it’s- Also, he’s been

Laci (01:34:53):

Made, right? He needs to get kicked out of Omega. He’s on the news.

Matt (01:34:58):

He’s not a viable spy anymore. You’re the guy from the hostage video. You’re that whole thing man who saved Miami. Yeah. Yeah, not a good spy.

Laci (01:35:05):

Bad, bad spy. He’s my brother. I have a twin, Danny DeVito.

Matt (01:35:11):

He has to go save her in the Harrier jet. Dana’s been kidnapped, taken to a Miami skyscraper that’s under construction and she steals the nuclear key and runs out onto a skyscraper. She’s

Laci (01:35:21):

Got a little bit of hairy in her after all.

Matt (01:35:23):

She does. And I think she’s pretty good here.

Laci (01:35:26):

It does make it all sadder knowing what the actual actress is going

Matt (01:35:31):

Through. Well, yes. And the spy agency’s like, “Don’t worry, we have a man on the inside and they’re talking about Grant Heslov Feisel who they send in with a news crew.” And you do realize they’ve written this character to be Arab so they can be like, “We have a good Arab though. So this movie’s not xenophobic or whatever.” But this all concludes with Arnold saving her in the jet and shooting Aziz like he’s a missile and I think it rules. It’s a great action sequence that shouldn’t be in the movie, but as its own thing, it is really good. This

Laci (01:36:03):

Would’ve been a great short story.

Matt (01:36:05):

Yeah.

Laci (01:36:06):

Okay. So what’s the thing that lives in your head?

Matt (01:36:08):

Yeah. So then it’s one year later. Oh God. Look at his fucking face, Matt. And this is always … What the fuck? It’s a year later, we’re seeing them as a happy family, but something’s not quite right. They’re like psychopaths linked arm in arm like they’re exchanging nutrients. Hide the cloud thumb wall. And they are all smiling like maniacs.

Laci (01:36:32):

And Dana’s dressed like a fucking trad wife because now she’s really happy. This is

Matt (01:36:36):

Lydia Dietz at the end of Beetlejuice. Now, yes, I can be-

Laci (01:36:39):

Well, and Jamie’s now embraced her sexy side, so she’s let her hair grow out.

Matt (01:36:43):

Yeah.

Laci (01:36:44):

Thank God.

Matt (01:36:44):

That’s what means you’re sexy is if your hair is long.

Laci (01:36:47):

That’s what I’ve been trying to do for six months to a year.

Matt (01:36:51):

Was this James Cameron thinking this is what happy families do? They sit at the table and link arms to exchange nutrients and shout thumb

Laci (01:36:57):

Wall. They’re using his strength as a way to interact with him. Now we know this about you. We saw the muscles before, but we thought those were computer muscles. Now that we know they’re lift me out of a car, lift me off a crane muscles. Let’s do a thumb war, Papa. That’s what they’re doing. They’re using his muscles as a source of fun.

Matt (01:37:15):

They don’t know what else to do. All they can do is pretend to be the happy nuclear family. This is what families do while they just wait desperately for their call so they can go spread the American empire all over the world. They are pretending to be a happy family, but they don’t know what it looks like. That’s why Arnold Schwarzenegger looks like a killer in this photograph.

Laci (01:37:34):

I don’t see what you mean. He looks so normal. That’s the amount of gums I’m used to seeing on a man.

Matt (01:37:39):

Because they get the call and Helen goes stands with the phone and you’re like, “Oh, hell in the housewife answering the phone.” He’s like, “Doris.” And she springs into action. She’s a spy too now. Oh my God. What?

Laci (01:37:50):

How’d she get the clearance? Is Dana a fucking spy? She showed some chutzpah.

Matt (01:37:56):

She really did. I mean, she’s out of future.

Laci (01:37:58):

That’s the only way to do it. Got to be a spy family. Kill Bill knew new he’s doing.

Matt (01:38:01):

They go off to a gala and they find Bill Paxton and he pees himself again.

Laci (01:38:06):

Funny.

Matt (01:38:07):

I don’t know. We

Laci (01:38:08):

Got to catch up with everybody. Still peeing pants. Still thumbing

Matt (01:38:12):

Wars.That’s true lies. I mean-

Laci (01:38:14):

What part of it was the true lie?

Matt (01:38:18):

God.

Laci (01:38:19):

Because there’s-

Matt (01:38:20):

Jesus.

Laci (01:38:20):

Unknowable unknowns and there’s known unknowns.

Matt (01:38:25):

That’s

Laci (01:38:25):

What I thought they’re playing around with.

Matt (01:38:27):

No knowns.

Laci (01:38:27):

You got your lies and you got your true lies and then you got your lion liars. All right.

Matt (01:38:33):

I actually do see what you mean. Where is the truth?

Laci (01:38:36):

I think the truth is that they both love each other, even though they’re both lying to each other. They are true in their heart. They always have a thumb war Waden.

Matt (01:38:46):

They’d love each other in any universe, no matter what their jobs are.

Laci (01:38:49):

Look at his gums. I want to write my name on them. They’re so prominent in this fuck. Oh my God. Fuck. Everybody thumb

Speaker 3 (01:38:56):

Loss. Yes.

Matt (01:39:13):

Final thoughts on true lies.

Laci (01:39:15):

I’m putting it down to a 3.5 saw Reese. It’s not that bad. It’s not that bad that I did that.

Matt (01:39:21):

No, I

Laci (01:39:22):

Know. I feel fine that I did it.

Matt (01:39:23):

No, I’m between a three and a half and a four. As I said, at the opening, I think it’s not a great movie, but everything about the movie is great, but it’s not a great movie.

Laci (01:39:34):

Right.

Matt (01:39:34):

It just doesn’t hold totally together.

Laci (01:39:37):

He just didn’t know how to edit himself. This movie is … He had a bunch of big centerpiece ideas and he didn’t know how to carve a couple of them out and he had the budget to do it. And even the most charismatic people can’t get you through three inmates.

Matt (01:39:53):

And talking about James Cameron.

Laci (01:39:54):

Yeah.

Matt (01:39:55):

And I think it’s okay to … If you’re like …

Laci (01:40:00):

I think he was thinking, how do I turn my movie into a Disney attraction? I need to have a few things that could give you a rollercoaster vibes because I want Indiana Jones money. That’s what I think he’s doing. And he got it with Avatar. Way to go. You did it.

Matt (01:40:17):

I think it’s okay to say it may not make sense for the final 20 minutes of the movie to be here, but I know I could do something awesome with it and I got this hair jet, so let’s just do it. And yeah, that’s okay. It doesn’t have to be the tidiest movie you’ve ever seen.

Laci (01:40:31):

Well, it sure isn’t, and that’s why it’s missing a star and a half. So way to go.

Matt (01:40:37):

I think it’s a blast. Yeah, it’s definitely in the bottom tier of my Cameron rankings, but he’s my favorite director. I’m just a very special guy with special tastes. Aliens is definitely number one. Titanic, probably number two. And the avatar movies have really risen from me in recent years, but you also got your Terminators. So what do you …

Laci (01:40:57):

What do you do? All good politics.

Matt (01:41:04):

And so this has been one week rental.

Laci (01:41:05):

Okay. Well, we’ve been that.

Matt (01:41:08):

And we have social media.

Laci (01:41:09):

Oh my God, do we?

Matt (01:41:10):

That you can follow Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, blue sky and- Matt’s

Laci (01:41:14):

All their podcast, pod job, and sign post up ahead.

Matt (01:41:17):

Laci’s coloring videos on the YouTube link in the descriptions of that. Next week begins our Oscars coverage, previewing Oscar’s movies with an all- star cavalcade of guests. And the music on this program is provided by Rural Route nine, my band. Check us out wherever you get your music.

Laci (01:41:40):

Okay. I love you. Goodbye.