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"Welcome to the party, pal." Celebrating Bruce Willis and his Career.

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  • Fire_and_Ice_ReturnsFire_and_Ice_Returns I am trying to get away from this mountan!
    edited July 28 Posts: 26,192
    As a fan of Noir/Neo Noir and whodunnits I have watched Color of Night many times, it is quite bizarre and yes its obvious what is going on quite early into the film.
  • DEKE_RIVERSDEKE_RIVERS
    Posts: 2,272
    cooperman2 wrote: »
    I've always been a fan of Hudson Hawk since it's release. The problem with the negative response to the film at the time was I think one of perception. It was sold as a Bruce Willis movie produced by Joel Silver so people were expecting another Die Hard style film and what they got was a surrealistic comedy. If it had been sold as such I think people may have got it

    I like this movie but yes, people were waiting for John McClane.

    Pulp Fiction helped his career a lot. More than we think.
  • SeveSeve The island of Lemoy
    Posts: 714
    LeonardPine wrote: »
    I always found Striking Distance (1993) to be pretty underrated.

    Had a troubled production history, but it's a decent Police thriller.

    Good film, but it's just hard to take cops in shorts seriously...
  • Mathis1Mathis1
    Posts: 8,379
    Fire_and_Ice_Returns wrote: »
    As a fan of Noir/Neo Noir and whodunnits I have watched Color of Night many times, it is quite bizarre and yes its obvious what is going on quite early into the film.

    I only went to see it in cinemas, because of director Richard Rush. Love 'Freebie and the Bean', and 'The Stuntman' is intriguing. But it doesn't really work on any level, and yeh, the twist is pretty obvious!
  • thedovethedove hiding in the Greek underworld
    Posts: 5,998
    Even a cop played by Sarah Jessica Parker?

    I love John Mahoney and the cast for that movie was pretty solid with Tom Sizemore, Denis Farina, and others.

    I think Bruce wasn't an actor to be pigeon holed. He took on various genres and tried different things as an actor. His turn as a villain in Day of the Jackal was admirable. Haven't seen Cruise or Arnold or any of the other heroes of the day try their hand at being the bad guy.
  • RyanRyan Canada
    Posts: 761
    thedove wrote: »
    Haven't seen Cruise or Arnold or any of the other heroes of the day try their hand at being the bad guy.

    Cruise was excellent in Collateral.

    And what about Arnold in the first Terminator film?
  • thedovethedove hiding in the Greek underworld
    Posts: 5,998
    I stand corrected! LOL! Can we scrub this from the record?
  • SeveSeve The island of Lemoy
    edited July 28 Posts: 714
    But has Arnold or Tom ever played a hero who wears shorts?

    That takes real bravery and versatility

    tom-cruise-filming-cocktail.jpg?s=1024x1024&w=gi&k=20&c=MkNABUrhDZ-yPJCC4aMDYlTRcysD9kz7Ojtw0J2W1VQ=

    F37CalgasAEgUYW.jpg:large

  • SeveSeve The island of Lemoy
    edited July 28 Posts: 714
    thedove wrote: »
    Even a cop played by Sarah Jessica Parker?

    I stand corrected too

    sjp-19-f84870e90e694056aa0fed806619d243.jpg

  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,804
    Did another DIE HARD marathon last. My ranking:

    Awesome:
    Die Hard
    Die Hard With A Vengeance

    Really good:
    Live Free Or Die Hard
    Die Harder

    Worse than half of Siegal's post-2000 films
    A Good Day To Die Hard
  • mattjoesmattjoes Joe Don baker
    Posts: 7,229
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Awesome:
    Die Hard With A Vengeance

    Attention, attention, Nils is dead! I repeat, Nils is dead, f**khead! So's his pal, and those four guys from the East German All-Stars, your boys down at the bank? They're gonna be a little late!
  • SeveSeve The island of Lemoy
    Posts: 714
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Did another DIE HARD marathon last. My ranking:

    Awesome:
    Die Hard
    Die Hard With A Vengeance

    Really good:
    Live Free Or Die Hard
    Die Harder

    Worse than half of Siegal's post-2000 films
    A Good Day To Die Hard

    49.jpg
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,804
    Seve wrote: »
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Did another DIE HARD marathon last. My ranking:

    Awesome:
    Die Hard
    Die Hard With A Vengeance

    Really good:
    Live Free Or Die Hard
    Die Harder

    Worse than half of Siegal's post-2000 films
    A Good Day To Die Hard

    49.jpg

    Yuppiekayay!
  • ringfire211ringfire211
    edited July 30 Posts: 681
    Except that Die Harder is MUCH stronger than Live Free. I like the latter just fine (except for the ridiculous nonsense with the fighter jet at the end and McClane surfing it lol) but it doesn’t touch the original trilogy.

    The less said about A Good Day to Gag Hard the better. Can’t believe I paid money to see that garbage in the movie theater. Probably because I was pleasantly surprised at how well Live Free turned out.
  • RyanRyan Canada
    edited July 30 Posts: 761
    I would count A Good Day among the worst films I've ever seen, and certainly my most mediocre experience in the cinema seeing a film from a franchise I like with a star that I adore.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,804
    A Good Day To Die Hard feels like a script someone had lying around for a washed-up action star (possibly Willis) turned into a Die Hard film (in name only!) to squeeze an extra buck out of it. I can't stand Jai Courtney in this film, nor Willis lecturing him all the time. I couldn't care less for the villain(s), the action, or the climax. The Detective is nothing like a Die Hard film, yet Sinatra's fascinating noir flick, based on the same novel series that spawned Die Hard, still comes closer to a good Die Hard film than AGDTDH. I remember leaving the theatre with a burning hatred for this film inside me. I wanted to warn people who were attending the next screening to stay away from this travesty.

    Live Free, by contrast, is a lot of fun in my opinion. Some of the action is great, I love what Justin Long, Kev Smith, Maggie Q, and the wonderful M.E. Winstead bring to the film, and Willis is still giving a pretty good performance. It also still feels like a Die Hard film, a stark contrast from that abysmal fifth entry in the series.
  • SeveSeve The island of Lemoy
    edited July 30 Posts: 714
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    A Good Day To Die Hard feels like a script someone had lying around for a washed-up action star (possibly Willis) turned into a Die Hard film (in name only!) to squeeze an extra buck out of it. I can't stand Jai Courtney in this film, nor Willis lecturing him all the time. I couldn't care less for the villain(s), the action, or the climax. The Detective is nothing like a Die Hard film, yet Sinatra's fascinating noir flick, based on the same novel series that spawned Die Hard, still comes closer to a good Die Hard film than AGDTDH. I remember leaving the theatre with a burning hatred for this film inside me. I wanted to warn people who were attending the next screening to stay away from this travesty.

    Live Free, by contrast, is a lot of fun in my opinion. Some of the action is great, I love what Justin Long, Kev Smith, Maggie Q, and the wonderful M.E. Winstead bring to the film, and Willis is still giving a pretty good performance. It also still feels like a Die Hard film, a stark contrast from that abysmal fifth entry in the series.

    Yes, that's the really disappointing thing, LFODH was a worthy addition to the series, despite being made over a decade later, they still managed to get it right, but AGDTDH didn't.

    The title and tag line are great, and the basic scenario is fine, but the script and particularly the casting of Jack McClane is all wrong. No Harrison Ford / Sean Connery chemistry there.

    "Yippee-ki-yay, Mother Russia!"... if only
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    Posts: 8,314
    A Good Day To Die Hard remains one of the very small number of films I've ever walked out of the theatre on before it was over. It's simply atrocious.

    Live Free is pretty tame and a tad too generic in comparison with what I'd want from a Die Hard film, but it's slickly made with Willis giving a good performance and I think Olyphant made a good villain. I'll always enjoy it when it's on.
  • mattjoesmattjoes Joe Don baker
    Posts: 7,229
    I didn't care for how Die Hard 4 looked when it came out, it didn't gave me a Die Hard vibe. But I watched the unrated version last year and thought it was a lot of fun. I still don't think it's got as much of the Die Hard vibe as the previous movies, but it's well made. I love the very first action scene and how at the end McClane shoots through himself (!) to kill the bad guy.

    A film that's great, even better than Die Hard 4, made around the same time and which has a Die Hard thing going on, is 16 Blocks.

    I've never seen the last Die Hard, nor do I want to, but I thought the very first trailer, the teaser, looked great. The only thing that felt off for me was the woman taking off her clothes. She looked great but that didn't fit with the Die Hard vibe to me.

    And though I've never seen the movie, only one or two scenes on TV, I hate how McClane's son calls him John. I'm not feeling the chemistry there either.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,804
    Nothing can redeem AGDTDH. It doesn't have the proper feel, the aspect ratio doesn't fit Die Hard, the movie looks ugly, is too short, shouldn't be set in a foreign country... Apart from one good car chase, the action isn't any good either. And the sad part is that there will never be a Bruce Willis Die Hard 6 to set things right.
  • DEKE_RIVERSDEKE_RIVERS
    Posts: 2,272
    Yes, but Yulia Snigir is hot. It's the only thing I can remember from the movie.

    Die hard 4 was quite generic. Maybe Willis needed a toupee like Connery. ;)

    16 Blocks wasn't Die Hard either. McClane was never such a loser and I think that's the point of the movie.
  • ringfire211ringfire211
    Posts: 681
    I just think whoever thought that a Die Hard film should end in Chernobyl must have been high on something. This ain’t Jack Ryan or some foreign espionage series. THIS IS DIE HARD!! Don’t take McClane out of the USA 🇺🇸
    He’s a blue collar guy who fights crime on his home turf.
  • ringfire211ringfire211
    edited July 31 Posts: 681
    DEKE_RIVERS wrote: »
    16 Blocks wasn't Die Hard either. McClane was never such a loser and I think that's the point of the movie.
    It’s been many years since I’ve seen 16 BLOCKS but your description of him being an expendable loser type of cop immediately brings to mind Clint Eastwood’s loser cop Ben Shockley from the very underrated 1977 flick THE GAUNTLET. It’s actually one of my favorite Eastwood films. Clint plays an expendable loser cop who has to bring in a witness (Sondra Locke) to trial. He’s basically being set up by his higher-ups to be killed along with Locke. No one thinks he’ll make it out alive. I think that was the similar storyline of 16 BLOCKS.
  • DarthDimiDarthDimi Behind you!Moderator
    Posts: 24,804
    ringfire211 wrote: »
    DEKE_RIVERS wrote: »
    16 Blocks wasn't Die Hard either. McClane was never such a loser and I think that's the point of the movie.
    It’s been many years since I’ve seen 16 BLOCKS but your description of him being an expendable loser type of cop immediately brings to mind Clint Eastwood’s loser cop Ben Shockley from the very underrated 1977 flick THE GAUNTLET. It’s actually one of my favorite Eastwood films. Clint plays an expendable loser cop who has to bring in a witness (Sondra Locke) to trial. He’s basically being set up by his higher-ups to be killed along with Locke. No one thinks he’ll make it out alive. I think that was the similar storyline of 16 BLOCKS.

    The Gauntlet is fantastic. I didn't care all that much for 16 Blocks. It's not a bad film, just not very memorable IMO.
  • SeveSeve The island of Lemoy
    edited 5:14am Posts: 714
    ringfire211 wrote: »
    I just think whoever thought that a Die Hard film should end in Chernobyl must have been high on something. This ain’t Jack Ryan or some foreign espionage series. THIS IS DIE HARD!! Don’t take McClane out of the USA 🇺🇸
    He’s a blue collar guy who fights crime on his home turf.

    Fair point, but I think a better script, casting and direction would probably have neutralised that. After all, McLane had already battled foreign adversaries twice on home turf (the Gruber bros), is it such a big stretch for him to play an away game?

    Being in a foreign country provides opportunities for cross cultural / fish out of water humour, but on the other hand could leave an impression of jingoism if not handled correctly. However, as the Russian government are not very popular with most, that would probably not be an issue.
  • CraigMooreOHMSSCraigMooreOHMSS Dublin, Ireland
    edited 12:36am Posts: 8,314
    DarthDimi wrote: »
    Nothing can redeem AGDTDH. It doesn't have the proper feel, the aspect ratio doesn't fit Die Hard, the movie looks ugly, is too short, shouldn't be set in a foreign country... Apart from one good car chase, the action isn't any good either. And the sad part is that there will never be a Bruce Willis Die Hard 6 to set things right.

    *whispers*

    I don't think the big chase scene is that great either. The crash zooms are awful, and the editing of both picture and sound is suspect at points. Great stunts and effects by the respective teams, but their work is undermined.

    What I would say about the film though...

    The music by Beltrami is top quality. It seemed like he was the only one, even above Willis, who understood that this was supposed to be a Die Hard film. The music is the only thing that gives you that sense.

  • thedovethedove hiding in the Greek underworld
    Posts: 5,998
    I haven't watched either Live Free or Die Hard, or Good Day to Die Hard. May have to check them out, although maybe I should avoid Good Day.

    I forgot about 16 Blocks, if I am not mistaken it was shot partially in Toronto. Course in my old age I might be wrong.
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