Terminator 2: Judgment Day
Director: James Cameron. Cast: Edward Furlong, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Linda Hamilton, Robert Patrick, Joe Morton, S. Epatha Merkerson, Earl Boen, Jenette Goldstein, Xander Berkeley, Castulo Guerra, Danny Cooksey, Robert Winley, Michael Edwards. Screenplay: James Cameron and William Wisher, Jr.

Photo © 1991 Carolco Pictures/Lightstorm Entertainment
August 29, 1997 apocalypse - now it's 2027 - "It was just a question of whcih would reach him first" - flaming sheet metal - Burning playground, elegiac brass, occasional heavy clanking percussion and faintly heard, low choral movements - fire fills screen, blue truck grill: pure intensity, no context of time or place or duration - "Bad to the Bone" upon leaving bar - "He hasn't cleaned that room of his in a month" - somehow two expositions (LH's v.o., Dr. Silverman's briefing to nurses) better than one - Sinister window to Sarah's cell, brutal male nurses (white & black) - hacking into ATM - "She's a total loser" GnR - Biehn fantasy in cell - "There is no future except what we make for ourselves" - clanking metal under her slo-mo dream run through asylum corridor - chainlink motif (also asylum windows) - jewel-toned playground (almost D.W. Griffith) - Sarah raving in a crouch on video monitor - 6 months have passed, promised reprieve is denied - Morton 27:25 - Motorcycle trail to "Galleria" - why would John have mallrat girlfriends, and why would they know where he's going, and tell a copy? - Missile Command! (x cutting) - AS huge shotgun and trodden roses - mechanical whale moan - silver ballistic hole, and RP keeps on going - 33:02 RP & mannequin - Truck, moped, motorcycle - sheared cabin of towtruck, nudging John's scooter, Arnold off a precipice - Matrix Reloaded - flapping rubber of shot tire - Slow tire from truck wreckage re: slow tracks of apocalyptic prologue - Arnold struggles with alloy, prototype, cybernetic organism - offscreen sound effect of JG impaling XB, and the suspended milk bottle (wit!) - goes back to policeman for no real reason - "I need a minute here" but he doesn't! - dog-killer! - Furlong's a disaster ("Everything they got me to believe was all bullshit!") - dumb blocking, EF on car hood, AS standing in empty space - He has to stand on his foot? - "Of course, I'm a terminator" interesting Ed Sciss problem, killed by flat acting and stupefied direction - Licky nurse KBv1 - SEff - coffee vending machine & RP out of floor - visual bait of the broken mop-handle - LH running on balls of her feet - LH undone by AS out of elevator - The poor orderlies! - Bracket-hooking onto back fender of police-car, AS's casually cocked-over-the-shoulder shotgunning - broken-off fragment into foot - Terrifying whiteness vs. Paris Is Burning - LH admonishes John, who cries - "What's wrong with your eyes?" - and now we head to some stalled acquaintance-making - Heavy pop of the bullet slugs on the metal table - Drilling into head (Stereo, Pi) - EF stops LH from pummeling Arnold's CPU - nO PROBLEMO, Dickwad - Slo-mo of kids with guns - humanity programmed to destroy ourselves - S. Epatha: "You promised to take the kids to Raging Waters today" - "Sometimes I feel like I'm goin' crazy here" (re: LH) - Black couple dehumanizing labor - desert windswept outpost - Repairs 1:26:46 - sluggish in desert - We just cry, you know, when it hurts - Of all the would-be fathers who came and went over the years - "in an insane world, it ws the sanest choice" - !!!! - Need it be a playground? But gutsy (double) self-annihilation - LH:RP - "Miles Dyson! SHE'S gonna blow him AWAY!" - "We have fillings... it's important" - Why does LH back down (I really crave a better actress) - "Dyson listened while the Terminator laid it all down" (we're spared!) - Motherhood vs. invention - "You're judging me on things I haven't even done yet" - It's not every day you find out you're responsible for 3 billion deaths - Cheap Spielberg device of the kid who can hack into the Dyson silent-alarm mainframe - "How many?" "All of 'em, I think" - Myth of clean automatic firing - Police shoot up the Black Guy - Helicopter plowing into an armored truck - all human cost gets mapped onto RP, then police, then our hero vigilantes - Liquid nitrogen freezing of t-1000 : nuclear fallout; slo-mo, multi-angle shattering after Hasta shooting - 21149 RP, why not back as naked? - 21326 Arnold - Virtual repeat of Newt into watery basement as LH gets ride of EF - 21708 Split down middle - Smashing Arnold with steel pylon, right in the head - Ambiguous call of the doubled, unreliable mother - Reloading the shotgun by grabbing the barrel and thrusting the whole weapon - T1000 Body Snatcher howl when detonated into pieces - Nightmare of prismatic identities, incinerated bodies, face out of mouth out of face - "I cannot self-terminate. You must lower me into the steel" - AS' impassive apologies 22542 - "I know now why you cry, but it's something I can never do" - Thumbs-up to John as he melts? - "Because a machine, a terminator, can learn the value of human life, maybe we can, too" - B+

Academy Award Nominations and Winners:
Best Cinematography: Adam Greenberg
Best Film Editing: Conrad Buff IV, Mark Goldblatt, and Richard A. Harris
★Best Sound: Tom Johnson, Gary Rydstrom, Gary Summers, and Lee Orloff
★Best Sound Effects: Gary Rydstrom & Gloria S. Borders
★Best Visual Effects: Dennis Muren, Stan Winston, Gene Warren, Jr., and Robert Skotak
★Best Makeup: Stan Winston & Jeff Dawn

Other Awards:
British Academy Awards (BAFTAs): Best Sound; Best Visual Effects
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