This isn't in direct response to captainsolo's post, but personally, I never got the hoopla about Casablanca. It's an above-average Hollywood movie from the 1940s...buuuut that's kind of it. Best movie ever made? One of the all time classics? Some times it just comes off as so artifical and...Hollywood. It's a pretty good movie, but I never understood what the big deal was. I can understand the big deal about movies like Wizard of Oz and Citizen Kane, but Casablanca, while a well made and enjoyable movie, never struck me as anything too special other than being an old movie that was good. Just like How Green Was My Valley, but no one really elevates that other than being a good old movie, which is really all HGWMV is (I also think it's better made). In the pantheon of classics, Casablanca stands out to me as remarkably average next to its peers.
I saw True Lies for the first time since the 1990s I think. One of those films that has been mysteriously, unexplainably absent on DVD and Blu-ray when it was a huge deal at the time it was made and one of the most expensive movies ever. It was funnier than I remembered it, but also more Schwarzengger-y than I remembered it. I guess it's because I never thought of Cameron as making "action" films, T1 and T2 and Aliens seemed to be so much more than that but this one seemed a bit more by the numbers. Really most of True Lies is a domestic drama, so it's pretty much "more than an action film" as well, but the ending is so over the top that it really leaves you with a "Schwarzenegger movie" impression. That's not a bad thing, it was just unexpected. This is definitely one of Arnold's best performances in a movie, and it was as funny as I remembered it. Blowing up that bridge is also one of the most impressive practical stunts I've seen. A good movie, but not really a great one. Worth revisiting. You can tell Cameron was just having fun playing around, but because of that there is a slightly two-dimensional feeling to it, even though the characters and writing and acting are all done very well. I also found it a bit unintentionally racist against Arabs just because it's yet another Hollywood movie where the only middle eastern people are terrorists, but True Lies got enough flak for that when it came out.