I am currently watching The Terminator as I write this. Goddamn, what a great movie this is. I probably haven't seen this in twenty years or so. If a Terminator movie shows up on TV it's usually the sequel. Now that is also a fantastic movie, that every time I land on it wile channel-surfing I have to watch the damn thing. I usually think to myself 'Ah, I'll just watch a scene or two' and then end up watching the whole thing anyway because it's so well-made. But yeah, the first one and James Cameron's sophomore effort (after the ridiculous Roger Corman b-movie Piranha 2: The Spawning) rarely shows up on TV, so when tonight it did I had to watch it (despite, you know, owning it on DVD for more than twenty years as well...).
Cameron might have made smoother-looking films with better special effects, but he never made a more efficient film than The Terminator. The whole film is like a well-oiled machine, constantly moving forward, like the Terminator itself. Exposition is the first half of the film is embedded into the action scenes, the movie doesn't slow down until good guy Reese is captured by the police. (Which, incidentally, is where we are now as I write this. Live commentary!). And of course Cameron did it for peanuts. Arnie's Austrian-accented Terminator just operated his damaged eye, and yes, you can see that Arnie's head is a plastic fake when we see his exposed eye, in the same way that the miniatures and stop motion effects are easy to identity now. But hell, give me that over weightless, spotless CGI any day and twice on sunday, which it is today.
You know what's also great about The Terminator? It's unforgettable title theme. On one hand, Brad Fiedel uses a cheap-sounding synth. On the other, that makes the theme sound like one of John Carpenter's, which is a good thing! Fiedel's score was one of the first entirely electric scores, all what nowadays would probably be called darkwave. Like Carpenter's scores, it gets a little repetitive here and there, but it's a fine time capsule and a fine reminder to go watch that movie again whenever you can.
So, while I continue watching this classic - thus no tagging the tracks, I'm lazy tonight. Go do it yourself if you have to! I'm watching a movie, man! - have some fun with Friedel's score.
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Terminator
ReplyDeletehttps://workupload.com/file/hpScxhLGSTq
What is your favorite James Cameron movie?
ReplyDeleteAnd what is your favorite Schwarzenegger movie?
Favorite Ahnold movie is Total Recall! Haven't seen most of Cameron's movies in a long time so I'm not sure about that one.
ReplyDeleteNot being a blockbuster/popcorn movie kinda guy, my James Cameron movie experience exactly overlaps my Arnold S. movie experience in that the first two Terminators are all I've seen by either of these fellers. I liked the first, thus my interest in the second, and the second one blew me away. One might think I'd check out more from either/both of these guys, based on how great I found T2, but I was never inspired to do so. I won't snarkily say "'I'm probably not missing anything", because I'm sure they've both been great at what they do, but what they do is generally not my cuppa.
ReplyDeleteC in California
That's a fair point, all in all. You got out of the Terminator series before it became "a franchise", with a series of desperate sequels to try to continue Cameron's story when all was said and done with T2. The mix of muscular practical effects and the first really good CGI in T2 blew everyone away and is still stunning to watch.
DeleteCameron's output got...spotty...while becoming more and more expensive. Not sure which of Arnold's movies are truly good, though like for Mr. Dave, Total Recall is a favorite, and a smarter movie than what it first lets on....
I've had a passing curiosity about Total Recall, since my ex-wife got me to read a bunch of PKD back in my married days. Like blockbustery movies, sci-fi (or much of any fi) generally ain't my cuppa, but I remember liking the PKD I did read (only title I remember now is Man In The High Castle, and other than that maybe an anthology or two of short stories).
DeleteC in California
Well, it's PKD via Verhoeven, which means it's probably like Heinlein via Verhoeven with "Starship Troopers". It's great fun, and smarter than it lets on, but I'm not sure fans of the book will love it. Not that I have read much PKD, but from what I hear they took the main story hook and that's about it...
DeleteSo, since neither blockbuster type movies nor Sci-Fi is your thing, what kind of movies are you into, C?
Not sure there's a 'kind' of movie I like. And among my list of favorites -- those below, all of which I Netflixed back in the day (when you ordered a physical copy) to burn my own copy before returning -- are some def popcorners & blockbusters and sci fi. But I don't generally care for lowest common denominator in my music or my movies.
ReplyDeleteIn alphabetical order, since that's how the 28 are organized in my DVD holder:
Airplane!
Alien
All That Jazz
Being There
Blue Velvet
Buffalo 66
Clockwork Orange
Delicatessen
Don't Look Now
Gladiator
High Plains Drifter
The In-Laws (original)
Matrix
The Natural
9 To 5
O Brother Where Art Thou?
Office Space
Primal Fear
RoboCop
Series 7
Shakes The Clown
Shawshank Redemption
Somewhere In Time
Sorcerer
There's Something About Mary
3 O'Clock High
Unforgiven
Used Cars
The Usual Suspects
I'll add Interstellar and Every Which Way But Loose and maybe Blow Out (have to watch that one again to see if it still hits like it did in my youth) one of these days to the collection. There's a Verhoeven in there, a couple Ridley Scotts, I like/love about all the Coen Brothers movies I've seen, there're a couple Roy Scheider and Clint movies, I'm always impressed by Scorsese (tho he's not on this list), and the Frenchman in you should endorse the inclusion of Delicatessen. I was really impressed with Uncut Gems, which is the last movie I saw.
C in California