Moviesucktastic: Arnold Schwarzenegger

Tuesday, January 12, 2010

Welcome to Blu-Ray Hell: 1/12 Releases

Cover of Cliffhanger (Collector's Edition)

For those of you eager to see what cinematic travesties the studios would like you to experience in all of their wonderful widescreen high definition glory, you need look no further than the following January 12 releases:

Cliffhanger (1993), Sylvester Stallone, John Lithgow - The big-budget action-adventure box-office failure that Stallone will never live down, featuring John Lithgow as the bad guy sporting a greasy hairpiece that he will never live down. Then again, it isn't half as bad as Oscar. While everyone has their own favorite Cliffhanger moment, mine would have to be the Stallone Impale-Bad-Guy-On-Stalactite-Weightlifting-Move. Extra points for still managing to squeeze numerous bare-armed flexing moments into a film in a frigid arctic setting.

Last Action Hero (1993), Arnold Schwarzenegger, F. Murray Abraham - The big-budget action-adventure box-office failure that Schwarzenegger never truly got enough flack for, although it is easy to see how it could be eclipsed by Cliffhanger, which was released in the same year. Then again, it isn't half as bad as Junior. There's nothing better than an action film that spends most of its time reminding its audience how stupid action films are, and by association, they are.

Fame (2009), Kay Panabaker - Not as much a remake of the original 1980 film of the same name as it is a bizarre attempt at making a slightly more adult High School Musical. For those who like to see Academy Award winning musicals updated to include self-conscious references to YouTube and Reality Talent Television Shows, this is your dream come true. This also happens to be the "Extended Dance Edition", so this should hopefully hold you over until the 3D Step Up sequel comes out in the theaters this year. And no, I'm not kidding about that. Now if we can only get a modernized update of A Chorus Line with Simon Cowell as the producer. Oh, and in 3D.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

Schwarzenegger and the End of Days

While working on an article this morning, I was reminded of Arnold Schwarzenegger's biblical

Image via Wikipedia

apocalypse action-fest End of Days. Obviously, the need to share my feelings about the film was overwhelming.

In what was most likely an attempt for Arnold to break out of the comical role that he had portrayed in more than half of his last dozen films, his leading role in End of Days is that of a dark, brooding, depressed man who is still emotionally haunted by the death of his wife and daughter. Unfortunately, the cliche riddled film does little to shake off the stigma of redundancy by also including his character as an abrasive ex-cop who doesn't play by the rules, Satan on Earth portrayed as a suave businessman, an "end of days" scenario that involves Christmas and New Years Eve, and a race to save the world that involves plenty of gun fights and action sequences.

On a refreshing note, Gabriel Byrne gleefully refuses to break out of his rut of mundane monotone acting as he plays an earthbound Satan that displays his potential for evil by being deviously untruthful and sleeping with a woman and her daughter at the same time, criteria which would wold probably nominate at least a hundred or so current and former CEOs and politicians for the position of Ruler of Hell.

There's a lot to groan about in End of Days. It is the kind of film that unflinchingly declares its comfortableness with mediocre screenwriting at the beginning, when it has Arnold throw a slice of cold pizza in a blender for a breakfast shake to demonstrate his character's lack of predictability and adherence to convention, and the proceeds the keep the intelligence level of the film's story at a Tales from the Crypt level of sophistication and depth.

Not that one usually expects sophistication and depth from a Schwarzenegger film. But when push comes to shove, End of Days is philosophically inferior to The 6th Day, less plausible than Total Recall, and not even remotely frightening as Junior.

I dare you to deny the crappy of that.