_Conan the Barbarian_ is a film starring Arnold Schwarznegger

Conan: To crush your enemies, see dem driven before you, and to hear da lamentations of deir vimmen!

Oh, Arnold, you!

I remember thinking it was a great film but it's been years since I've seen it. I might have a different opinion now, being so Arnold-weary and all. Still, he barely speaks in the film.

Oh, new message alert. Herbsmute just pretty much summed up what's classic about it.

Conan the Destroyer, the sequel, was a real let down. And I was all excited because they'd gotten Grace Jones as the female lead, but it was just a predictably cheesy fantasy/comedy Hollywood flick. Too heavy on the camp.

And hello Ned, hope you're having a blast. Sorry I didn't make it out to the Mountain Goats.

"soon there came a time when my master's victories could not easily be counted" (ie more than like five)

[cue amazing look of existential horror from arnold]

[cue decapitation]

Conan -> Total Recall & T2 is a pretty good run, you must admit.

I've been watching MST3K too much these days. sorry.

Both movies are priceless. Unfortunately, the Destroyer soundtrack is something like $80 or so these days. ARRGH.

Conan the Barbarian
Terminator
Raw Deal (birth of the quipping Arnold. "You should not drink, and bake.")
Predator
Running Man (w/ Richard Dawson! "WHO DO YOU LOVE?!")
T2

good:
Commando
Twins
Red Heat
Kindergarten Cop
True Lies
Last Action Hero (Featuring Death! and a Queensryche song on the soundtrack!)

enh:
C the Destroyer
Red Sonja
everything after True Lies

oh yeah, and look for him with a big 70's moustache in Altman's The Long Goodbye

(dammit, now i need to start ordering some DVDs)

Kindergarten Cop = odd tone changes.

Remeber when I said I'd kill you last?
Yeah, man! You said that!
I lied.

but hey, how often are you gunna get Arnold & Alyssa Milano with that fucked-up sideways ponytail in the same flick?

The first Conan movie and Excalibur were favorites of mine when I was thirteen.

I always figured they would make a Conan the King movie once Arnold got older. After all, it is one of his few movies where his accent works and sounds good with the character.

Last Action Hero is hella underrated (though that's probably because of the weird Spielberg-stylee glamourization of youths watching mindless violence. But the action parodies are top fuckin' notch)

Predator
Commando
Terminator

Alright Schwarzenegger films:

Terminator II

Shite Schwarzenegger films:

all the others.

CONAN OWNS.

- they got mako to reprise his role as AKIRO THE WIZARD
- grace jones one facial expression
- wilt chamberlin's spiky barbarian hat
- wilt chamberlin is named BAMBAATTA
- the thief
- dueling wizards
- "HIS HORN IS HIS LIFE"
- evil priestess impaled on dagos' horn
- lens flare effects on glittering treasure and dress is very "magical"
- the "god of gods", dagos, is shown to be, um, very idealized
- dagos in true form = pleasantly lovecraftian! (very gross, shades of cronenberg's FLY)
- very subtle joke about "my cousin's brother's sister" (ergo "my cousin's sister", but thief is too stupid to see the redundancy)
- the pomposity of the score
- crystal ruins are pretty cool looking too

bad things

- not barbaric enough

more conan/ eighties action film review fun. Also on the site is a nice top ten crappiest black metal picks of all time.

I loved arnie films when I was a kid, I thought he was a better actor than sly, or something. who knows what rationale was behind that decision

This piece = pretty good. The first two comments from Rosie = ALL TIME:

rosie
Wed 01/05/11 7:42 AM

i remember this film. i caught my husband touching himself to this all those years ago. being gay was scarce back then so he married me, apparently because my breasts weren’t very large and my hands were manly.

rosie
Wed 01/05/11 7:43 AM

also we’re divorced now and i hate this movie.

yoink

and ty, ned (doffs cap)

Too kind.

one of the greatest works of cinematic fascism ever. i think they re-recorded the soundtrack last year, i wonder how it sounds

i guess this it it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gAI_AN7SfXo

is it possible to be both fascist and individualist/anti-authoritarian? paradox of a milius

yeah i think thats milius in a nutshell. hes always been sort of playful about acknowledging it.

that EW writeup is great. seeing this when i was a kid, it played for me like a silent movie. it creeped me out how little people talked in it. well a ton of things creeped me out about it - the temple with the giant snake, james earl jones' slow transformation during the climax, the glimpses of wizardry, subotai's crappy tinny re-dubbed voice. i love the line in the EW piece about "purity of vision" - you can really see that in the way the movie is shot, every frame of it is muscular, and while the sets and costumes hold up i think it comes down to how the location shooting was incorporated into the film - the way the desolate, god-is-dead landscapes seem to invite conan to his doom but by the end he's the one dominating the frame. it's an incredibly satisfying movie to just look at.

^ OTM, it's such a strange movie. ostensibly a heroic action film, it's incredibly heavy, mournful and even psychedelic (esp in the final act, at thulsa doom's palace). if you're on the proper wavelength wavelength, it's hypnotic and suitably epic, but if you're not really feeling it, it becomes this arid boulder of a film, all static gravity, time without incident.

wavelength wavelength?

i really love this movie

tam tam otm, it's still so effective because everything in it looks like real things and real places

^ OTM, it's such a strange movie. ostensibly a heroic action film, it's incredibly heavy, mournful and even psychedelic (esp in the final act, at thulsa doom's palace). if you're on the proper wavelength wavelength, it's hypnotic and suitably epic, but if you're not really feeling it, it becomes this arid boulder of a film, all static gravity, time without incident.

...kinda like the original stories, you mean.

been wondering if I should get some of those Savage Sword of Conan reprint volumes. they were suitably mysterious to me as a child

...kinda like the original stories, you mean.

very much! like the 70s comics, too