I'm not a movie guy, but I've gone on a jag lately renting them on Saturday nights. Some have been good, but most have reminded me why why I'm not a movie guy. The Forrest Gumps and Shawshank Redemptions are few and far between.

A couple of months ago I picked up The Pursuit of Happyness starring Will Smith. This was the true story of a guy who went from sleeping in a subway bathroom to opening his own stock brokerage and making millions. I was hoping this movie would prove inspirational, and it did get off to a great start. The thing is the start lasted right to the end: two hours were spent on his downtrodden days, and in the last three minutes we're given a vague impression that things were going to turn out all right. How about we get a shot of him in his mansion, or at the Mercedes dealership? Nope, just the starvation and eviction days depicted here. It was all right, but not exactly what I was hoping for.

Then there was The Manchurian Candidate, starring Denzel Washington. I had heard the term "Manchurian candidate" a lot this political season, so I wanted to understand what that meant. This movie was good, but I had to search the reviews at Amazon to understand what the hell happened in the end. Okay, so he shoots somebody, then they walk him around the beach? What was that? I found out this had originally been made in the 1960's with Frank Sinatra, and from what I read that version of the movie made more sense, but Hollywood Video didn't stock that version.

Thirdly I rented Ocean's 11, which also originally starred Frank Sinatra, but of course I was seeing the more recent version with Brad Pitt and George Clooney. Holy mundane! With all the hype that surrounded this at the time it was released I was prepared to be sucked in and blown away, but nothing doing. Quite bland; no twists or surprises. This is the second Brad Pitt movie I've ever seen (Fight Club was the other), and it just made clear why I have a distaste for him. He seems like one of those guys from middle school who didn't have a particularly big personality, wasn't particularly smart, wasn't particularly talented, yet everyone flocked to him because he was cute and seemed to genuinely believe he was the shit. George Clooney might be another of those guys, except he's actually funny.

But that brings us to last Saturday night's pick, and the reason I'm writing! True Lies, starring Arnold Schwarzenegger. The Sunday before last Chris Matthews was saying that Hillary Clinton's campaign reminded him of a scene from True Lies where Arnold is handcuffed to a chair but still talking about how he was going to kill his captors. The clip was fantastic, so I hoped the rest of the movie would live up to it. It did! This was the best action-adventure movie I've seen in a decade.

Friday I saw an old friend who had just gone to see the new Indiana Jones movie. When I asked him how it was he said, "Well, you know, you can't get excited like you did when you were 13." After seeing True Lies I beg to differ. I was jumping around in my chair and breathlessly exclaiming, "Oh, shit!" the whole way. Maybe the new Indiana Jones movie is lame?

Whatever, True Lies was great. If you haven't seen it, Arnold plays a James Bond-type agent who leads a double life as a traveling computer salesman. His life changes, though, when he begins to suspect his wife, played by Jamie Lee Curtis, is cheating on him. The way everything weaves together after that is brilliant. The subject matter is so timely -- Arabs terrorists trying to detonate a nuclear warhead inside the United States -- that I thought the movie couldn't have been more than four or five years old. I was sincerely shocked to read this came out 14 years ago!

I won't go any further, I just hope you'll take my word for it and let yourself in for a great time and rent True Lies.

Footnote: I also rented Casino Royale a few weeks ago. Meh. It was all right, but it mostly just made me want to see Live and Let Die again. Is Roger Moore still with us?