TRUE LIES

(July 1994, U.S.)

I've loved all of James Cameron's theatrical motion pictures since THE TERMINATOR (1984), and I love TRUE LIES, too. It's action-packed, exciting, and funny, to boot. Yet somehow it's the most easily forgettable of all his work. Perhaps it's because it was sandwiched like a filler movie in between two of his biggest hits, TERMINATOR 2: JUDGMENT DAY (1991) and TITANIC (1997). Perhaps it's because of its overly-humorous tone premise among a body of work that's usually anything but funny. Who knows?


Arnold Schwarzenegger returns for the third time with Cameron to play Harry Tasker who's leading a double life as both a dull computer salesman to his wife Helen (played by Jamie Lee Curtis) and his daughter Dana and a secret agent for a United States intelligence agency called Omega Sector. With his fellow agent and comic-relief sidekick Albert (played by Tom Arnold), they start off the movie by infiltrating a foreign party of suspected arms dealers and terrorists in Switzerland in a series of action sequence that practically pay homage to the James Bond film GOLDFINGER. The terrorist leader Salim Abu Aziz (played by Art Milik) heads the group known as "Crimson Jihad" intends to hold America hostage with his newly-acquired nuclear missiles. The action that opens the movie soon dissolves itself into the mundane life of Harry and Helen. When Harry shows up unexpectedly at Helen's office to take her to lunch, he overhears her talking on the phone to a mysterious man named Simon. Convinced Helen is having an affair with him, Harry used his Omega resources to discover that Simon is merely a used car salesman pretending to be a covert undercover agent in order to seduce women into bed, and it looks like Helen is his latest target. Disguised, Harry and his participating team kidnap Helen and Simon. Simon is easily scared off, but during interrogation, Helen confesses that due to Harry's absence, she desperately seeks some adventure in her life, thus hooking up with a fraud like Simon. Harry arranges for Helen to participate in a staged spy mission, where she's required to plan a listening device in the phone at a hotel suite, but not before she has to dance in her bra and underwear to seduce a mysterious figure (who is actually her husband himself). This sequence reveals what a sexy woman Jamie Lee Curtis truly is (or was back then)...

Just as the seduction reaches the point where Helen discovers it's actually Harry behind the entire facade, Aziz's men burst into the hotel room and kidnap them to an island in the Florida Keys, where Aziz reveals his smuggled nuclear warheads and threatens to destroy an American city each week unless the U.S. military withdraws from the Persian Gulf. As his first act, he plants one of the warheads on that deserted island to detonate it, showing his seriousness to the U.S. government. Of course, Harry breaks himself and Helen from from their captors and kicks major ass along the way to their freedom. After hanging from a helicopter and rescuing Helen from a speeding limo toward a gap in a destroyed bridge, the island warhead is observed in its detonation in an almost beautiful sight across the water. But back home, Aziz and his men have taken Dana and taken control of a Miami skyscraper under construction. Harry commandeers one of the U.S. fighter planes and arrives on the scene to rescue his daughter and destroy the bad guys once and for all. A year later, the Tasker family are happily reunited and Helen has joined the Omega Sector alongside Harry.

While TRUE LIES won't exactly be remembered as Cameron's or Schwarzenegger's greatest achievement, the film still entertains with enough action and humor to sustain itself. Arnold can be funny when he wants to, and I suppose we've also learned a thing or two about Curtis - not only with her amazing body, but her ability to adapt herself to humorous situation beyond what she did in TRADING PLACES (1983). Bill Paxton as Simon, is as obnoxious as he can be, reminding us of his panic-stricken persona in Cameron's ALIENS (1986). In the end, as I previously stated, TRUE LIES is fun, but doesn't nearly stand up against Cameron's the greater blockbusters of his impressive career.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Albert (about the fake Simon): "I'm startin' to like this guy. We still gotta kill him. That's a given, you know."

TROY

(May 2004, U.S.)

Let's face it - I'm more or less a product of whatever Hollywood chooses to show me on the big or small screen. I've never read Homer and I know nothing of Greek mythology. What little I know of Helen of Troy comes from the movies and the fact that Diane Kruger as Helen in Wolfgang Peterson's epic historical war drama is one of the most breathtakingly-beautiful woman I've ever seen on screen, though what she's doing with a boy like Orlando Bloom is beyond me. Condensed into just a few weeks in screen time, this is supposedly the entire story of the long Trojan War, in which the battle between the Greek armies of King Agamemnon of Mycenae and King Triopas of Thessaly is quickly averted when the great warrior Achilles (played by Brad Pitt), fighting for Agamemnon (played by Brian Cox), defeats Boagrius, Triopas' champion, in single combat after Achilles is initially absent from the battle. Prince Hector of Troy (played by Eric Bana) and his younger brother Paris (Bloom) negotiate a peace treaty with Menelaus, King of Sparta. However, Paris is sleeping with with Menelaus' wife, Queen Helen (Kruger), and smuggles her aboard their home-bound vessel (not a smart move, as it turns out). Menelaus meets with Agamemnon, his elder brother, and asks him to help take the city of Troy. Agamemnon agrees, as conquering Troy will give him control of the Aegean Sea.

In Troy, King Priam (played by Peter O'Toole in one of his final film roles) is dismayed when Hector and Paris introduce Helen, but welcomes her and decides to prepare for war.
The Greeks invade and take the Trojan beach, thanks largely to Achilles and his Myrmidons. They claim Briseis — a priestess and the cousin of Paris and Hector — as a prisoner afterwards. He is angered when Agamemnon spitefully takes her from him, and decides that he won't aid Agamemnon in the siege. That night in the temple of Troy, Priam discusses a strategy on how would they defend the city from the Greeks. Paris planned to duel Menelaus since he abducted Helen from Menelaus, which caused the war to occur. The Trojan and Greek armies meet outside the walls of Troy, and during a parley, Paris offers to duel Menelaus personally for Helen's hand in exchange for the city being spared. Agamemnon, intending to take the city regardless of the outcome, accepts. The fight is rather a pathetic one, in which Menelaus wounds Paris, causing him to cower behind Hector. When Menelaus attempts to kill Paris despite his victory, he himself is killed by Hector.

On Odysseus' insistence, Agamemnon gives the order to fall back. In the camp after Ajax and Menelaus were cremated, Agamemnon and Odysseus argue as to why they lost the battle. He gives Briseis to the Greek soldiers for their amusement, but Achilles saves her from them. Later that night, Briseis sneaks into Achilles' quarters to kill him; instead, she falls for him and they become lovers. Achilles then resolves to leave Troy, much to the dismay of Patroclus, his cousin and protégé.

Agamemnon finally declares that he will take Troy regardless of the cost. Odysseus concocts a plan to infiltrate the city. After seeing a carving of a horse by a Greek soldier, he has the Greeks build a gigantic wooden horse as a peace offering and abandon the Trojan beach, hiding their ships in a nearby cove. Despite objections from Paris who requests for it to be burned down, Priam orders the horse be brought into the city after Archeptolemus views it as a gift intended for calming the gods.

(at this point, if you're not thinking of MONTY PYTHON AND THE HOLY GRAIL as I do, then you simply have no sense of humor!).

A Trojan scout later finds the Greek ships hiding in the cove, but he's shot down as he tries to alert the city. Greeks hiding inside the horse emerge, attack the sleeping Trojans and open the city gates for the Greek army, commencing the Sack of Troy. While Andromache and Helen guide the Trojans to safety through the tunnel, Paris gives the Sword of Troy to Aeneas, instructing him to protect the Trojans and find them a new home. Agamemnon kills Priam and captures Briseis, who then kills Agamemnon using a concealed knife in her hand. Achilles fights his way through the city and reunites with Briseis. Paris, seeking to avenge his brother, shoots an arrow through Achilles' heel and then several into his body. Achilles removes all the arrows but the one in his heel (ah, so that's what the expression means), and then bids farewell to Briseis, and watches her flee with Paris before dying. In the aftermath, Troy is finally taken by the Greeks and a funeral is held for Achilles, where Odysseus personally cremates his body.

(Wow! This is a lot of Greek names to keep track of. Good thing I watched this film before writing about it).

Met with only mixed critical reviews, I can't deny that TROY epic has its own rightful place alongside others of the type as BEN-HUR (1959), SPARTACUS (1960), and GLADIATOR (2000), in my opinion. As much as anything like it, it's an entertaining spectacle with some solid acting, though it may lack any real emotional payoff, particularly of the love between Helen and Paris, which is what initially triggers the entire "temper tantrum" that occupies the story. Brad Pitt and Eric Bana are modern actors in ancient roles, thus bringing a certain level of complexity that may be necessary in a 21st century production. Orlando Bloom remains a boy, and Helen Kruger...well, all I can honestly say is...DAMN, SHE'S HOT!

As for director Wolfgang Peterson, I can only say it's too bad the only American film he's made since TROY was the pointless remake POSEIDON in 2006. I mean, this is the same man who gave us such exciting thrillers as DAS BOOT (1981), IN THE LINE OF FIRE (1993) and AIR FORCE ONE (1997). But maybe he'll surprise us again someday...maybe.

Favorite line or dialogue:

Achilles: "Myrmidons! My brothers of the sword! I would rather fight beside you than any army of thousands! Let no man forget how menacing we are! We are lions! Do you know what's there, waiting beyond that beach? Immortality! Take it! It's yours!"

TRON

(July 1982, U.S.)

Let me start with a personal story...

TRON was the first time I went anywhere near a Disney movie since THE BLACK HOLE in 1979. It was also a time when I committed an act of movie-selection stupidity. By July 1982, I was away at sleep away camp as a CIT (counselor-in-training), and one of the privileges of such a position was that once in a while, we were taken to the movies by members of the senior staff. I recall a quad theater somewhere in town near the camp. While I can’t recall all four movies playing at the time, I know one of them was TRON, and two others were Clint Eastwood’s FIREFOX and John Carpenter’s remake of THE THING. The group consisted of maybe twelve-to-fifteen boys and girls total, and a few counselors chaperoning us. Most of us were evenly split between FIREFOX and THE THING, while only a couple of us chose TRON. All three choices had awesome visual and special effects to offer, though TRON was considered the more childish of the lot simply because it was a Disney movie. Well, if it isn’t obvious to you by now, I chose to go with the minority and see TRON. While I don’t totally regret that decision, because it was a pretty awesome movie, I do regret blowing my opportunity to see a gory horror show like THE THING with not only the absence of my parents to try and stop me, but also perhaps seeing it with one of the girls sitting next to me in a frightful state.

Even before the movie began, I was confused because I’d previously heard of the TRON video game already in arcades. So like the egg and the chicken, which came first, TRON the movie or TRON the video game? Was the game based on the movie or vice-versa? Turns out both of them were created together; the movie concept developed first and the game adapted from it. The story proposes the idea of life inside the video game and the computer in general, as well as those in the real world who created these games. The opening scene is simple enough when a boy puts his quarter into the video game at Flynn’s arcade and then takes us inside the game to show what is the life-like situation behind the game. Back in '82, this was some of the most incredible animation and live action effects I’d ever seen on screen before; a different class of effects which defined alternate movie-making effects having little to do with the effects of movies like STAR WARS, CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE THIRD KIND or BLADE RUNNER.

In the part of the story that takes place in the real world, Flynn’s arcade was owned and operated by Kevin Flynn (played by Jeff Bridges). Flynn is like a big kid himself, just as good at the games as his customers are, especially a game called Space Paranoids. According to his claims, he's the true inventor of that particularly successful game, as well as a few others, but his ideas were stolen by another man at his company named Ed Dillinger (played by David Warner), who's also the big boss. No longer employed there, Flynn spends his free time trying to get into the company’s computer system to locate evidence that will prove Dillinger has stolen his video game ideas and passed them off as his own. As Flynn performs his extensive computer tricks, we watch what happens inside the system with Flynn’s alternate computerized counterpart (also played by Bridges who looks like a blue and white robotic version of himself). When Flynn hits a snag that crashes the computer, we watch the computer version of himself called Clu crash into a wall and disintegrate into oblivion.

The company called ENCOM is controlled by what's called a Master Control Program (MCP, for short). This program talks to its human users and can even control their lives and actions by blackmailing them with information they don't want leaked to the public, as is the case with Dillinger. One of ENCOM's designs is a laser that can take apart an object and put it back together again. With the help of two friends, Flynn gains access into the system again, but he's sitting in front of the laser, not knowing what it will do or what's about to happen to him. When the laser strikes his back, his body freezes and disappears. He doesn't die, but is rather transported into the world of the computer, though once inside, he's still Kevin Flynn the user and not the computerized version of himself. Once inside the computer, Flynn is a prisoner of the MCP who not only has to figure a way out, but also has to play an assortment of combat games in order to survive. Eventually, he encounters computer versions of his two friends from ENCOM, Alan and Lora, or Tron and Yori, as they're called inside the computer world. They form an alliance to not only escape the prison of the MCP and its guards, but to also free and liberate other computer programs held as slaves to the system.

As the virtual battles continue, Flynn and Tron get closer to their freedom. In a final battle between Tron and Dillinger’s computerized version called Sark, the two try to destroy each other with flying discs. Even by today's standards, this is still an awesome light show of color and visual effects as they not only hurl the discs at each other, but block them with those same discs, as well. In the end, Tron disables Sark and then throes his disc into a gap inside the machine, thus destroying the MCP’s rule over its computer slaves. As victory is at hand, all the computer programs communicate with their users in the real world and create a free society inside the computer. This not only sends Flynn back to the real world, but also reconstructs his body with the same laser that took it apart. Still seated where he was before disappearing, Flynn now has the printed evidence he’s been searching for to prove Dillinger’s guilt. As a result of this, Flynn becomes the boss of ENCOM and all is "happily ever after" in the real world.

Well, look how far we’ve come in the world of video games and computers since 1982. By that perspective, TRON may be considered one of the most dated movies to represent another era. It's for that reason above all, that makes the film such a treasure today, in my opinion. When we watch TRON, we're witnessing several things here - not just the bygone era of the 1980s, which signified the golden age of video games with classics like Space Invaders and Pac-Man, but also the quick rise of the personal computer and machines in our society, both in everyday functions and our popular culture. Months before the film opened, Steve Jobs of Apple Computers made the February 15, 1982 cover of Time Magazine as one of "America’s Risk Takers". Later, the January 3, 1983 issue of the same magazine declared the personal computer as "Machine of the Year". On February 11, 1983, rock band Styx released their single "Mr. Roboto" from their forthcoming album Kilroy Was Here, declaring these immortal words,

The problem's plain to see
Too much technology
Machines to save our lives
Machines dehumanize

My point is that years before James Cameron depicted the rise of the machines over mankind in THE TERMINATOR, TRON already suggested a consequential world in which human beings would think less and computers and machines would think more. Because the film was considered a disappointment at the box office, it's easy to overlook such an achievement in story concept and technical moviemaking over the years. By its own right, TRON represents a milestone in the world of filmmaking due to its use of animation featuring digital patterns of such vehicles as motorcycles, ships and tanks. The technology to combine computer animation and live action was still experimental in the early ‘80s, despite the rotoscoping effects in films like Ralph Bakshi's AMERICAN POP (1981) or even the dancing sequence between Gene Kelly and Jerry the mouse in the movie musical ANCHORS AWEIGH (1945). The computer used in TRON was limited in how it delivered background detail on film, thus such visual effects were created using a more traditional technique of the time called "backlit animation", incorporating black and white filming for the sequences inside the computer and then later colored with more sophisticated photographic methods to give the action on the screen a greater appearance of technology.

As a kid, I never would’ve understood what any of that stuff meant. Hell, I was still trying to understand just how stop motion animation, blue screens, and matte paintings really worked in films like STAR WARS. TRON is an example of what it means to create pure fantasy. The computer in our world of the 1980s was a simple, mundane tool that rested atop our desks. The film suggests a dramatic, glamorous and even romantic world inside the great machine, though we can’t be expected to take such a suggested world too seriously. We’re simply here to witness a dazzling technological show of light, sound, and fluorescent color, perhaps not too unlike watching a planetarium laser light show accompanied by the classic rock music of Pink Floyd or Led-Zeppelin.

Gifted actors like Jeff Bridges and David Warner who provide the equal sides of good and evil are a welcomed plus, even for a plot that's considered weak by some. Nonetheless, it reminds us all of just how much fun and exciting video games were for my generation at a time when they were still enjoying their rise to fame and glory. Those games brought about our spirit of the fun and adventure a few hard-earned quarters out of our weekly allowance money would bring us. Today, don’t even attempt to ask me about the modern video games of the world. I don't pretend to understand them and frankly, I don’t want to try. In a world where we have games requiring a rating for violence and gore, it’s time for me to get off the ride...permanently!

Favorite line or dialogue:

Dr. Walter Gibbs: "You've got to expect some static. After all, computers are just machines, they can't think."
Alan Bradley: "Some programs will be thinking soon."
Dr. Gibbs: "Won't that be grand? All the computers and the programs will start thinking and the people will stop."

(The people have stopped thinking!)

TRIAL, THE (1962)

(December 1962, U.S.)

Those of us who may worship CITIZEN KANE as not only one of the best films ever made, as well as the best of Orson Welles's distinguished career, may be surprised to learn that Welles himself declared his version of Franz Kafka's THE TRIAL the best film he ever made. Film fans who don't follow Welles too closely may easily dismiss THE TRIAL as a less important example of his work. The film itself has fallen into the public domain over the years, so it's one of those films that could really stand a good digital remastering, as even the best copy available on DVD is still grainy (on the other, that may be part of the appeal that makes it so visually special).

The film begins with Welles narrating Kafka's own words of "Before the Law" to scenes of artistic pinscreen. The story's protaganist, Josef K., is played by Anthony Perkins in what's surely his most nervous role since Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock's PSYCHO. Josef K. is an office bureaucrat who is awakened in his apartment bed one morning by a mysterious man in a suit, who accuses him of a crime that's never specified. Josef assumes the glib man is a police officer, but the intruder never clearly identifies himself and ignores Josef's demand to produce any proper identification. Additional detectives enter the room and inform Josef that he's under arrest; again, no specific charges are described. Three of Josef's co-workers are also discovered on the scene collecting evidence regarding the unstated crime. Despite his repeated please, Josef is not informed of or charged with any specific crime, nor is he formally taken into custody.

At his office, which is visually depicted as an endless and mindless factory of desks placed in perfect symmetry, Josef's supervisor suspects he has been having an improper affair with his teenage female cousin. At the opera that night, Josef is abducted by the police inspector and brought to a courtroom, where he continues to attempt (in vain) to confront the still-unspecified charges against him. He eventually consults with law advocate Albert Hastler (played by Orson Welles himself). The interview proves ineffective, and Josef is soon brought before a room filled with condemned men awaiting trial. All attempts at discovering what is happening to Josef and why prove useless. Seeking refuse in a cathedral, he learns from a priest that he's (Josef) been condemned to death (Hastler appears again to confirm the priest's news). Josef is apprehended by two executioners and brought to an abandoned quarry pit, where he's forced to remove his clothing. A knife is passed back and forth to decide who will execute Josef, before handing it to Josef himself, who refuses to take his own life. He's left alone in the quarry and is finally killed when dynamite is thrown into the pit. The final shot is an explosion heard from a distance as smoke fills the air.

Despite the age and available picture quality of THE TRIAL, it is nonetheless an important piece of work for its black and white cinematography and scenic design, often including disorienting camera angles and an unconventional use of camera focus and inventive lighting. While it may be regarded as an incomprehensible piece of work, it remains, in my opinion, a lasting effect to Welles's filmmaking genius, including his trademark use of overlapping dialogue and use of multiple perspectives with foreground and background elements. It's confusing, yes, and perhaps not for all cinematic tastes, but if cinema were always that simple, it wouldn't be interesting, and it wouldn't be fun (just goes to show you what I personally consider interesting and fun).

Favorite line or dialogue"

Albert Hastler: "It's true, you know. Accused men are attractive. Not that being accused makes any immediate change in a man's personal appearance. But if you've got the right eye for these things, you can pick out an accused man in the largest crowd. It's just something about them, something attractive."