True Lies is incredibly Camerony, but aside from that is a total blast. Just pure absurdity from start to finish.
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I struggle to process âCameronyâ as a dig because for my money he has one of the highest batting averages and, to extend the analogy, slugging percentages, of any director out there.
That said, on The Big Picture, Amanda Dobbins talked about how True Lies was a lot of fun despite the high amount of recently divorced guy energy in it, so I think I read you.
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Thanks for the recommendation. Tubi has quite a few Korean romcoms. After a few of those, I got around to watching this documentary last night. I give it 4/5 pitchforks.
I really liked that so many of the engineers and scientists still working on Voyager are minorities and immigrants.
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Donât miss this classic!!!
Co stars Sinbad, Tom Arnold (the Arnold/Tom team is unstoppable baby!!), and Jake Lloyd before he played young Anakin Skywalker and quickly retired from acting.
Includes a classic Arnold meme.
Unfortunately didnât like it, though my one watch was a new theater watch ~25 years ago and I remember basically none of it aside from there being a wrestler cameo (by Paul Wight, then still The Giant I think).
I find that the âtough guy does comedyâ thing misses more than it hits for me. De Niro is the only one who I readily think of as crossing over nicely from his usual serious killer roles.
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That makes sense with what youâve shared about your tastes. And wow is Arnold doing comedy a broad yet specific taste. De Niro def has more range for this sort of thing (aka all things).
On the other end of the spectrum are clowns as dramatic actors. And I donât mean actors like Robin Williams, who was goofy but excused complexity in every performance.
No, Iâm talking about John Cena in this INTENSE isolated location war drama in which he co stars against a second clown named Aaron Taylor Johnson (Kick-Ass).
Directed by Doug Liman 
This is how I feel about The Waterboy.
I think there may be something about the potential unintentionality of the comedy in the likes of Predator and Commando that just works better. In part, his lines are WAY funnier because of his absurd deadpan of everything he says.
Like, obviously meant to be funny:
âI like you, Sully. Iâm going to kill you last.â
âI lied.â
âWhat did you do with Sully?â âI let him go.â
But those go from being B- lines in the wrong hands to being hilarious specifically because of the delivery. I laughed really hard at Rae Dawn Chong frantically screaming, âAre you going to tell me whatâs going on?!?â and Arnold speeding along and deadpanning ânoâ without looking at her or changing expression even a little.
I havenât watched John Cena act in any non-wrestling thing, but then again I havenât watched Dwayne Johnson act in any non-wrestling thing. My long-term contempt for action movies has just caused me to ignore everything they do. Iâm willing to revisit this policy now. But I wonât be surprised at all if Cenaâs profile continues to grow as an actor. Dude is insanely talented. Even when playing an insufferable wrestling character, there was no choice but to respect how good he was at playing the (often annoying) role they asked him to play.
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Some Sandler movies are great, but things have a way of going sideways when he throws too many scraps to his idiot friend Rob Schneider.
That said, I donât actually remember the wrestling cameo in this one.
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I didnt neccesarily mean it as a dig, just more along the lines of if someone asked me âwhat is the most quintessentialy James Cameron movie in the entire Cameron canon?â I would say True Lies.
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Agree about John Cena. He was hilarious in Trainwreck.
That joke about him looking like Mark Wahlberg is even funnier when you listen to Cenaâs rap tracks.
Hearing John Cena rap about a square circle is up there with Commando.
I think what works for these kinds of actors is the same thing that works for all actors succeeding on that level. They negotiate how the audience perceives them as a real person vs the character theyâre playing.
Itâs sort of like Johnny Drama in the seventh season of Entourage. He wants to be seen as a tough guy so bad that he canât accept how hilarious he is as a cartoon animal. But then he discovers that his insatiable need for machismo is an essential part of what makes him funny. He doesnât need to stop being who he is as an actor. He just needs the right roles.
John Cena has been making some excellent choices for roles, eg Barbie, The Suicide Squad/Peacemaker, Bumblebee, Blockers, and in a final weird coincidence for a bad movie, he fulfilled the dream of Vinnie Chase from Entourage to play the lead smokejumper in a movie called Playing with Fire.
Oh right, Trainwreck. And Barbie. I was totally wrong about not having seen Cena act outside of wrestling even though those were cameos. Trainwreck was pretty rough, but the Cena part was excellent. I have intended to eventually get around to Peacemaker.
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I liked Trainwreck a lot.
IMO Bridesmaids >>> Trainwreck >>>>>>>>>>>>>> Bad Moms and every other raunchy female comedy the last 20 years.
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Iâm fuzzy on Trainwreck in the same way that I tend to be fuzzy on movies where I go ânopeâ and begin the process of passively leaking them out of my brain, but I had decent hopes for it and just didnât care for it. Bridesmaids was excellent, especially if we could edit out the extended bathroom humor sequence. And it sounds like you need to see Bottoms when you get the chance.
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Oh man.
I hope youâll try at least a few specific scenes again. The stuff with Bill Hader and Lebron James is timeless.
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Yes to this
But I am afraid I might not like it. I heard it has a zany aesthetic thatâs not been represented in previews. And I just donât enjoy elaborately weird aesthetics, eg Wes Anderson, Tim Burton.
This feels quite unlikely to me, but I look forward to your thoughts.
I also watched Shiva Baby since seeing Bottoms, and it was also a good movie (itâs funny but with a lot less slapstickâŚwarning to Suzzer that thereâs a high intentional cringe factor). I didnât know she existed a month or two ago, but now Iâm excited to see where Rachel Sennottâs career goes.
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Trainwreck isnât super great, but Hader does a great job in the role
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For Cena you gotta watch The Suicide Squad and then Peacemaker. Heâs fucking great
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