ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER
MOVIE STAR

ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

Born July 30, 1947 in Graz, Austria.
Arnold was raised in a small isolated village. He used body building as his ticket to a better life (he was bullied and picked on as a teenager!). With his stony determination to stop getting his ass kicked and an equally fierce determination to stop anyone who tried, Arnold's competitiveness, as well as his ability to believe in himself, made him THE most famous body builder who ever lived. No small accomplishment! In addition, he's earned himself a place (#20) in the top 100 Greatest Actors of All Time (Empire Magazine - U.K.). NOT because (Ha! Ha!) he can ACT, but because he's a great celebrity who is also an actor, and has - for the most part - wisely chose movies that do not compell him to extend his range beyond a few grunts and words (CONAN THE BARBARIAN, TERMINATOR, TERMINATOR 2) or that allow him to be befuddled and confused by his circumstances (TOTAL RECALL, TWINS, END OF DAYS, THE 6TH DAY) or that do both (PREDATOR).

Every decade or so produces folks like this. In the late 60s and 70s it was Clint Eastwood (who actually became a gret actor and director!). In the early 1980s to early 1990s it was Arnold Schwarzenegger. Now it's Keanu Reaves.

"A man's gotta know his limitations." - Dirty Harry (Clint Eastwood)

This style has made Arnold a "Great Actor" in the same way that John Wayne (who also couldn't act) was a "Great Actor".

"Whenever I play any role, I play John Wayne!" - John Wayne

The Guinness Book Of World Records has called Arnold, "the most perfectly developed man in the history of the world." So Arnold is one of the very few people in the world who can say that they have completely built themselves, from nothing more than their own willpower, into one of the Kings of the World!

"I'm a body builder, not an actor." - Arnold Schwarzenegger

Arnold has starred in a small handful of movies, some good some bad, but overall his movies rake in mountains of money due to his popularity with his audience. We not only love his movies, but his sense of humor and self-effacing personality.

Arnold's break-out movie was as Robert E. Howard's Conan in CONAN THE BARBARIAN. Without question, you could not have cast a better person to play the part. And the part was perfect for Arnold who demanded that he use his real name (Christ what a freaking name for an actor!) and was hampered by a thick, barely understandable, Austrian accent.

Arnold has made more than just SF/Horror/Thriller movies, he has made Comedy, Drama, and Action movies as well. But it's the Horror/SF/Thriller movies that have been the biggest hits with audiences and the only ones we review here.

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HORROR / THRILLER / MYSTERY / SUSPENSE
CREDITS

DECADES
1980 - 1990 - 2000

1980

1982

CONAN THE BARBARIAN

1984

CONAN THE DESTROYER

1987

Stephen King's
THE RUNNING MAN

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1990

1994

TRUE LIES

1996

ERASER

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2000

2000

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FOR THOSE WHO SCROLL ...

ARNOLD TO THE RESCUE!

At the famous Shriner's building in L.A. is the once a month Los Angeles COMIC BOOK and SCIENCE FICTION CONVENTION. It's mostly just a massive dealer's room, but they spice it up (and how) by having a press promo of whatever is the latest SF movie coming out. On June 8, they were promoting TERMINATOR 3. They had the robots and a few macaques from the film. Sweeet!

They also had the cast of T3 in the form of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Stahl, and Kristanna Loken. AND director John Mostow and make up artist Stan Winston.

The emcee asked all who had a question to leave their seats and form a line near the stage, where the table of celebrities would answer questions one by one.

After seeing the trailer for T3 a few thoughts entered my mind.

1. TERMINATOR 3 is subtitled: The Rise of The Machines, whereas, despite T2, SkyNet still takes over the world and begins the route of humanity.

2. It is released by Warner Bros. who are also releasing, in the same summer, THE MATRIX: Reloaded, which is also about the rise of the machines (in this case, the massive computer Matrix), that fight against what Neo and co. started in THE MATRIX and begin the route of the free humans in Zion.

3. This second MATRIX is going for a green motif everywhere (unlike the first which went for blue). The bestselling S.M. Stirling novel, TERMINATOR 2: The Future War, released in anticipation of T3 (though the book is not the movie) also has an entirely green cover.

4. The Bros. Warchowski (of THE MATRIX) have expressed interest in working with Arnold Schwarzenegger sometime in the near future.

So

2 movies, released by the same studio in the same year and season and both are about machines taking over the world and the creators of one have talked about working with the star of the other. I stepped up to the microphone and politely addressed the smiling faces of, from left to right, Stan Winston, Arnold Schwarzenegger, John Mostow, Kristanna Loken, and Nick Stahl, stated the above observations and asked,

"Are there any plans to tie in the TERMINATOR franchise with THE MATRIX somewhere down the road?"

The faces of Schwarzenegger and Mostow went unbelievably blank. Then Mostow even seemed a little angry as he flatly said, "No."

I stood there, waiting for some elaboration. Perhaps he would talk about why his movie was worlds apart from THE MATRIX: Future plans to take the story line in directions that THE MATRIX never considered; etc. I expected something, anything, but Mostow just sat there staring right at me as if I had thrown a dead rat on the table.

The emcee, sensing a sad Southern California diss opportunity (It's just a thing for Southern California liberal folk; a rather large percentage of them feel a burning neurotic need to publically humiliate someone for amusement. It's one of the reasons Reality Shows with a humiliation angle keep getting the greenlight here), broke the silence with "I thought I told you all to ask GOOD questions?"

This got a few scattered titters from the audience. Apparently I had asked a totally unexpected question.

As I walked away, the emcee, forgetting that the audience wasn't here to see HIM and pushing for a bigger laugh at my expense (since the first one kind of bombed), then says to me as I walk away (understand that he has the microphone and the security guards on his side), "What's with your clothes and that cowboy hat, anyway? Are you supposed to be from Texas?"

Again, a few scattered titters but largely a mute crowd. These are MY people after all and we are ALL geeks! You should SEE the way we all dress! We dress for our own nutso tastes! Now this emcee, clearly in his late forties / early fifties and looking as though he STILL wears his older brother's hand me downs (patches on the elbows of his brown sweater shirt), is so hungry for the diss and expected, appreciative, laugh that he has totally forgot that the cast and crew of TERMINATOR 3 - the reason everyone paid to be here on this particular day - IS RIGHT BEHIND HIM! Did this sad emcee comic book freak think he stood apart from us? Did he think he was going to impress Kristanna Loken with his fashion sense?

In response, I stopped and said, "Yeah! I am!"

Then emcee starts to say something but doesn't get past, "Oh! well! ..." when somebody else speaks up.

To MY surprise, Arnold says, "Don't worry about it! You look good! I wear a hat just like that! I love it!"

Which was a wet fish slap in the face of the emcee (In Your FACE!), who could only stand there not knowing what to do.

There were a few scattered "Yays!" from the crowd. Clearly this was NOT a group who was taking sides on the issue. They could care less! They came to hear about the movie!

Still, I thought it was wicked cool that Arnold Shwarzenegger came to my rescue! Way to go, dude!

P.S., emcee guy. If you ever google through and find this, you may want, in the future, to not diss Texas on convention days when your invited guests sitting RIGHT behind you are FROM that state! And Nick Stahl was born and raised in Dallas, Texas! And don't diss cowboy hats when Arnold is around! The guy owns a ranch for crying out loud! A little research would have saved you from making an ass of yourself.

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ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER

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