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Adverts and advertorial for the new Total Recall film seem to be swamping London’s free papers and mags at the moment. Apparently it’s a remake only in so far as it’s based on the same original Philip K Dick material (and contains a woman with three breasts), which is probably in its favour, since trying to remake a Schwarzenegger film is always going to be a BIG MISTAKE.

Some years ago we had a series of film nights (and occasional all-day marathons) at my flat, complete with costumes and appropriate food. Themes included Batman (my brother dressed as Robin in green ladies’ tights, oversized Y-fronts and marigolds), the works of John Carpenter (stew made with red wine and lots of tomato to look like entrails), and Charlie’s Angels (not the execrable franchise movies, but a trio of films containing each of the actresses). Then we arrived at Arnie day.

The problem with trying to have a day of Arnold Schwarzenegger films is that the cigar-chomping old lecher just made so many great ones. Everyone’s opening gambit is ‘well you can’t possibly have an Arnie day without watching XXXXX’, to which someone else replies ‘but what about XXXX’. Before you know it you have far more films than you can possibly watch in an extended afternoon/evening session, even with the aid of booze-laced ‘protein shakes’, veal schnitzel and warpaint.

Eventually we had to work out categories, and ended up with the following list:

Early ArnieConan the Barbarian (we quite fancied Pumping Iron but no-one had a copy, and Hercules in New York is just mental)
Comedy ArnieTwins (Kindergarten Cop was a close second, but DeVito swung it)
Classic ArniePredator (most close-fought category, this one, and there was a lot of noise for Commando)
Sci-fi ArnieThe Running Man (Totall Recall lost out here)
The best of ArnieTerminator 2 (highly subjective, with the first Terminator in the running too, but number 2 is just that bit more quotable).

What do you reckon? What five would you have picked? For my part I thought Last Action Hero would have rounded things off nicely, but that sixth film might just have tipped us over the edge.

Adverts and advertorial for the new Total Recall film seem to be swamping London’s free papers and mags at the moment. Apparently it’s a remake only in so far as it’s based on the same original Philip K Dick material (and contains a woman with three breasts), which is probably in its favour, since trying to remake a Schwarzenegger film is always going to be a BIG MISTAKE.

Some years ago we had a series of film nights (and occasional all-day marathons) at my flat, complete with costumes and appropriate food. Themes included Batman (my brother dressed as Robin in green ladies’ tights and marigolds), the works of John Carpenter (stew made with red wine and lots of tomato to look like entrails), and Charlie’s Angels (not the execrable franchise movies, but a trio of films containing each of the actresses). Then we arrived at Arnie day.

The problem with trying to have a day of Arnold Schwarzenegger films is that the cigar-chomping old lecher just made so many, even allowing for the . Everyone’s opening gambit is ‘well you can’t possibly have an Arnie day without watching XXXXX’, to which someone else replies ‘but what about XXXX’. Before you know it you have far more films than you can possibly watch in an extended afternoon/evening session, even with the aid of booze-laced ‘protein shakes’, veal schnitzel and warpaint.

Eventually we had to work out categories, and ended up with the following list:

Early Arnie – Conan the Barbarian (we quite fancied Pumping Iron but no-one had a copy, and Hercules in New York is just mental)
Comedy Arnie – Twins (Kindergarten Cop was a close second, but DeVito swung it)

Classic Arnie – Predator (most close fought category, this one, and there was a lot of noise for Commando)
Sci-fi Arnie – The Running Man (Totall Recall lost out here)
The best of Arnie – Terminator 2 (highly subjective, with the first Terminator in the running too, but number 2 is just that bit more quotable)

What do you reckon? What five would you have picked? For my part I thought Last Action Hero would have rounded things off nicely, but that sixth film might just have tipped us over the edge.

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