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Nov 1, 2022Liked by David Chen

You’ve prompted me to seek it out, as I haven’t seen the movie since back when. (Side question: have you listened to any of Jamelle Bouie and John Ganz’s podcast “Unclear and Present Danger,” about all the political thrillers of the 1990’s?)

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No but should I??

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Yes, but choose films you’re really interested in. They do a lot of dissecting about what was going at the time of the film’s release, the politics and culture that surrounded each movie’s themes, etc. Deep dives but very interesting.

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Thx for the rec!

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This film has one of my all-time favorite few lines of dialogue:

Faisil: They call him the Sand Spider.

Trilby: Why?

Faisil: Probably because it sounds scary.

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“There are degrees of totality” also a great one imho

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Jamie Lee’s acting during the seduce the boss scene is so so good both comedic, scared, and seductive all at the same time. I still enjoy the Bill Pullman pretend agent cameo as he just nailed the online creeper in an over the top way that is this move.

Definitely worth a rewatch

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Oh the classic "Pullman/Paxton" mistake!

Paxton is great in this, btw.

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Doh!!!! Thanks for that!

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In the movie Crimson Jihad has 3 weapons. 1 on the island, 1 in a truck and 1 on the copter. What happened to the one on the truck. It left at least 15 min before the other vehicles. There were 3 trucks and a limo.

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Have this playing now while working, had to pause to watch the horse/cycle chase. One thing that stands out in this movie is that it seems very obvious when a stuntman is doing the work rather than the actors. I wonder how they decided what was and wasn't dangerous enough for Arnold and Art Malik to do.

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Awesome read, and now I'm stoked to put the flick on and revisit it myself. Really excited for these newsletters going forward.

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This is one of my favorite movies and there is no way to watch it in HD legally in Australia. I’ve heard rumours that James Cameron is working on a 4K Blu-ray.

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I think you're very much on point here when it comes to True Lies. It doesn't all hold up, but the good stuff is SO good. A couple thoughts:

Tom Arnold is perfect in this movie, he's so funny, whereas in other projects.. you know.. maybe not as much. It's kind of interesting to try to think of actors that have such a outlier of a performance in their careers.

Overall I find this to be a really funny movie, it makes me laugh more than most straight-up comedies. Awfully impressive when at the same time, it also has what are still some of the most impressive action sequences I've ever seen.

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