The Long Goodbye!

Ho ho! I bet you all forgot I was doing an Arnold Schwarzenegger run down! Or you hoped I forgot about it, it's a rather stupid project. Too bad, it has not been abandoned and here's the latest instalment! This would of been posted earlier in the week, but I forgot to email the artwork to my work computer. I never claimed to be a computer programmer! GET A GRIP PEOPLE! So here it is, with a weird poster that looks like it's from Mad Magazine, it's...

The Long Good-Bye (1973)

First off, this isn’t actually an Arnold movie. He is in it, and it does appear on his IMDB page, but he’s barely in it. He gets about 30 seconds of screen time and doesn’t do anything other then look threatening and take his shirt off. Arnie plays a heavy and is basically back drop material. So as far as Arnie goes, this is:

out of 5 Arnies.




So while a bust as far as Arnold goes, this is actually a pretty great movie. Robert Altman takes a classic Phillip Marlow detective story and kind of turns it on it’s head. The plot is twisty and turn-y, I’ll refrain form recapping it so as not to ruin any surprises since this is worth a watch, other then to say that like all great movies it's kicked off by a hungry cat*. The style of the film is pretty great. Marlow as played by Elliot Gould (probably better known as Ross’s dad on “Friends” then anything else) seems to be right out of the fifties, including his car. Everyone and everything else seems to be set in the seventies when the film was made. It sounds like a potential disaster, but it really works. All the Altman quirks are to be found, great performances (especially by the great Sterling Hayden who was supposedly drunk and stoned the whole time so his scenes were improvised) and overlapping dialog. So as a proper movie, this one gets a solid 4/5.

There it is! Arnolds second film isn't really an Arnold film but a neo-noir by an art house favourite director. Altman has always been a bit hit and miss with me. I don't think I've loved any of his films. Not even Short Cuts that features a nearly constantly naked crush object by the name of Julianne Moore. Grrrrowl! I do like that Julianne Moore! Maybe I should of done a Julianne Moore project, with tons of screen caps... maybe that should of been a private thought.

Next up is STAY HUNGRY. STAAAAAY HAAAAANGRY!! It's a proper Arnold film I think (he's on the DVD Cover) and he co-stars with The Dude. Should be good!

*Anyone who can think of another movie that's kicked off by a starving cat gets a prize!**

** Not really.***

*** Asterisk notes are fun!