Conan the Delirious Comedian
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The room is dark. On the left sits director John Milius, the man who wrote Apocalypse Now and the basis for Walter Sobchak in The Big Lebowski. On the right sits Arnold Schwarzenegger. The air is thick with cigar smoke and the room is a little too warm to be comfortable. Milius is sweating. There is a click and a whirr, and the darkness is pierced by a shaft of shimmering light. The first scenes of Conan the Barbarian illuminate the screen at the front of the room and the two men begin to talk.
That is truly the tip of the iceberg. Arnold is one thing, constantly restating the action in a delirious slur and firing off his litany of the word “Exactly.” John Milius is something else entirely – the longer Valeria is on screen, the heavier he breathes. It wouldn’t be surprising if she had a restraining order out against him.
We originally discovered the Conan the Barbarian commentary track years ago, in the days before Unwinnable, when we used to meet up on Sundays for movie night. We have seldom laughed so hard and so long.
