Arnold Schwarzenegger Total Recall Commentary
Barton Ostby
Even if you're the type of person who watches DVD special features, you have to admit that commentary tracks are generally pretty boring. Commentary tracks are two straight hours of people talking over a movie (which every sane human being automatically despises unless there are snarky robots involved), and for what? To hear Robert De Niro's opinion on the catering? To learn about the time Gwyneth Paltrow got lost on the way to the set and almost accidentally touched a black person? They're just not worth it. Not unless one of the filmmakers or actors snaps and has a mental breakdown right there on the tape ... which actually happens pretty frequently.
Cannibal! The Musical is a comedy created by Matt Stone and Trey Parker years before they hit major success with South Park. Given their candid nature and penchant for silly BS, you can probably guess that their commentaries are going to be almost as much fun as their movies ... especially when they open with a formal reading of their alcohol inventory.
Parker: I was engaged to this girl Liane ... and about a month before the wedding she decided to start sleeping with this guy in an a cappella group ... and I wrote this movie ... just so I could ridicule her, basically.
Yes, that's the same Liane that Cartman's slutty mother is named after on South Park. And Cannibal! The Musical is about a horse named Liane who leaves her owner. Hey, nobody said the man was subtle.
The rest of the movie's commentary is predictable Parker and Stone shenanigans: They reminisce about the boom mike operator's boobs, speculate about going to a strip club once the recording is done, and ... wait, did Parker just bring up Liane again, out of absolutely nowhere?
No bitterness there! Admittedly, this is pretty in line with Parker and Stone's sense of humor and may well be a bit they're doing. But something in his voice, that hurt little quaver ... we can't help but think that, after recording wrapped, Stone stripped to the waist and stood out in the rain screaming Liane's name until his nosy neighbors called the cops.
Psyche! There's a line even Schumacher won't cross, and that line is defending the existence of Batman & Robin. Schumacher spends the entire commentary track by himself repeatedly and earnestly apologizing for what he did. No stars to get in the way. No producers. Just an hour and a half of Schumacher pretty much going "God, I am so sorry -- I just ... nipples? What was I thinking? Send me your address. I will pay you your money back." There are very few clever anecdotes, precisely zero joyful reminisces -- just a few feeble defenses that quickly give way to shameful apologizing. If you want a fine example of a proper mea culpa, Schumacher is your man: "Blame the director," he says, " that's what our names are there for."
The man's only human, though. His first instincts are to deflect blame. For example, the acting? It's bad, " But hey, it's a comic book" -- because we all know nobody goes to a Batman movie to see a soul-shatteringly brilliant performance. Schumacher then responds to criticisms of Clooney's performance by reiterating that he "really doesn't see where the harm is" because "it's a Batman movie." But eventually, he brings up the script, and Schumacher finally seems to lose the argument he's been having in his head. He admits, "Akiva Goldsman was blamed a lot ... but that's not fair. I take full responsibility. I mean, Akiva did write the script, but I shot it."
They Live is a cultural milestone. A masterpiece of art and cinema. It is how an entire generation will be remembered -- not by their politics, music, or theater, but by this six-minute fistfight scene alone. If you haven't seen it, shame on you. We should exile you from this entry entirely, but we'll take pity this one time and fill you in. They Live was a sci-fi/action flick about aliens who invade by sneaking subliminal messages into corporate advertising campaigns -- messages that only become visible when the movies' heroes don magic sunglasses. For director John Carpenter, it was an opportunity to turn his acidic criticism of Reaganomics into a major release. For professional wrestler and movie star "Rowdy" Roddy Piper, it was a documentary.
The commentary derails early, right around the time the movie first shows us the aliens' subliminal tactics. That's when Piper explains that They Live is more than satire -- it's based on a real story that, somehow, the film's own director had never heard about:
Piper: The Bronswik Affair was a television they had. People would buy it and all of a sudden a housewife would come home with 50 pounds of dog food and she didn't own a dog ... And what they were doing was just what you had them doing here. They were sending signals out to the TV.
Carpenter is clearly uncomfortable and has no idea what Piper's talking about. But we at Cracked have heard about The Bronswik Affair, because we have access to Google and therefore never have to admit to not knowing about something ever again. It's a short mockumentary that satirizes consumer culture. Apparently Piper saw it, but failed to pick up on the fact that it was a joke (to be fair, that kind of thing happens from time to time). That's definitely the same video, too -- skip to 6:50 to see the exact moment Piper thought was real.
OK, so maybe we're exaggerating a bit there. He was just misinformed about another film. That's all. We can't rightly extrapolate that out to say "Roddy Piper thinks They Live was a documentary." He's never said anything of the sor-
"The Last Night of a Jockey" is an old Twilight Zone episode about a jockey who gets suspended from riding horses, then wishes he was bigger. The wish, obviously, backfires, because The Twilight Zone was basically one giant PSA about the dangers of evil genies. As far as episodes go, it's nothing special -- until you hear the commentary of Mickey Rooney (who stars as the jockey) and one incredibly brave interviewer.
You can't help but root for the poor interviewer. He keeps trying his damnedest to make the commentary into something informative, or at least interesting, but Rooney's attitude makes that completely impossible.
Toward the end, the interviewer makes the mistake of insisting that The Twilight Zone was an important show. It is then that we finally get a glimpse into the mind of Mickey Rooney. And find that it contains only misplaced rage at Internet pornography.
Haha, what? Where did that come from? Does Mickey Rooney think his rise to stardom was thwarted by Internet porn? What does sex have to do with literally anything they were talking about? It's like his rage is shutting down his language center.
Did we mention that the underlying theme of this episode is an angry, petty misanthrope who gets his deepest wish -- to be a big man -- but finds that he's still just as angry and petty as ever inside? We don't bring that up for any reason. We just thought it was interesting.
Arnold Schwarzenegger is an Austrian actor who made a name for himself in the '80s by starring in action flicks like The Terminator and Total- oh, you've heard of him! Lucky us. That saves us some preamble space. Did you know he's totally adorable? Because seriously ...
It's hard to explain just how hilarious Arnold's commentary is, and it happens for every single movie he's ever been in. It's like he's his own biggest fan. He's like a 10-year-old boy explaining the movie to his friends using action figures to act out the fight scenes. Here, start with the Total Recall track, which basically consists of him enthusiastically describing everything in the movie as it happens. We have a challenge for you: Just try to read any of these lines without mentally doing a terrible Ahnold impression.
He shares the whole commentary with director Paul Verhoeven, but keeps talking over everything Verhoeven says in his excitement. Here's his reaction after watching his character finally recalling his secret spy abilities and taking out a bunch of bad guys:
Throw in a few spit-rich explosion noises and this is exactly how your 6-year-old would describe Skylanders to his disinterested uncle. Here's all Arnold has to say about Conan the Barbarian:
Arnie: This scene with the enlargement of the breasts was fantastic ... in the audience you see immediately women in the audience saying "Wouldn't it be nice, where can you get that done?" Because there's some guys that like little breasts and there's some guys that like big breasts so wouldn't it be nice if we could play both sides you know and sometimes even simultaneously?
We know Arnie's got his issues: the steroids, the sexism, the puns he reflexively utters after murdering folks. But turn on commentary for one of his movies sometime and try not to be utterly charmed as a man that could tear your head off with his teeth turns into an excitable child every time something explodes.
Total Recall is a 1990 American science-fiction action film directed by Paul Verhoeven, with a screenplay by Ronald Shusett, Dan O'Bannon, and Gary Goldman. The film stars Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rachel Ticotin, Sharon Stone, Ronny Cox, and Michael Ironside. Based on the 1966 short story "We Can Remember It for You Wholesale" by Philip K. Dick, Total Recall tells the story of Douglas Quaid (Schwarzenegger), a construction worker who receives an implanted memory of a fantastical adventure on Mars. He subsequently finds his adventure occurring in reality as agents of a shadow organization try to prevent him from recovering memories of his past as a Martian secret agent aiming to stop the tyrannical regime of Martian dictator Vilos Cohaagen (Cox).
Total Recall was anticipated to be one of the year's most successful films. On its release, the film earned approximately $261.4 million worldwide, making it the fifth-highest-grossing film of the year. Its critical reception was mixed, with reviewers praising its themes of identity and questioning reality, but criticizing content perceived as vulgar and violent. The practical special effects were well received, earning the film an Academy Award, and the score by Jerry Goldsmith has been praised as one of his best works.
c80f0f1006