Die Hard

B., my friend. B.

 

Well, I did live in Birmingham until I was 8, after all.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lyman_Bostock

By the by, nice job on the Super Bowl halftime show tonight. Not bad for an old man. I'm sure you wish Howie Epstein was there to enjoy it with y'all ... Stan Lynch, not so much, I gather.

 

i'm going to get a little sentimental for a minute but this is 100 percent true: i perform for the lyman bostock's of the world.

thank you for the support.

 

I haven't heard anything so touching since I tried to return my salary to Gene Autry. (Sorry for patting myself on the back there. )

 

"Die Hard" was a groundbreaking film in much the same way the "Rambo" series was because it humanized the hero, and Willis gave the hero a sense of humor that we haven't seen before. "Now I have a machine gun." "Yippy-ki-yay motherfucker," etc. You got to see his emotions, too. Before that, the action hero was a virtual automaton. Arnold started to plow this ground a little bit in the late 80s with his one-liners.

 

The title fooled me because I thought it was a love story.

 

Also, Alan Rickman is a great villain. He's not some perfect genius. He's a smart guy but you see him make mistakes and have some emotions.

The slimy, coke-snorting co-worker is a good touch, too.

Worst part is the ending when the Teutonic thug who seemed to have been dead comes out shooting and gets shot by donut-eating cop.

 

Come on FB, the first action hero with a sense of humor?
How 'bout Eddie Murphy in Beverly Hills Cop or 48 Hours? Or Gibson in Lethal Weapon?
Die Hard was good. Very good. But I would hard-pressed to call it the best action movie of the 1980s, muchless ever.
My top 5:
1. The Highlander (I know I'm in the minority here.. I'm not even sure you would call this an action movie)
1a. Lethal Weapon
2. Predator
3. Die Hard
4. Robocop
5. Aliens

And Ace,
Don't knock Sgt. Al Powell for saving Bruce Willis' life.
Al Powell, played by Reginald VelJohnson(sp?) would later help give the world television icon Steve Urkel. Urkel, man.
Urkel.

 

Aliens? So you liked the sequel better?

Highlander -- eh.

I don't think Lethal Weapon holds up too well. Too much schtick.

 

No I didn't like the sequel better, but Alien was released in 1979. Aliens was (almost) every bit as good.

I didn't think Lethal Weapon's schtick really got started until they started cranking out sequel's.
I loved the first two Die Hards. Hated the third, and haven't seen any since.

No love for The Highlander!? Christopher Lambert's greatest role.

 

I'll give you that it was Christopher Lambert's greatest role. Movie might have been a tad better if they had an actor in that role, however.

 

Despite all its flaws (really bad supporting players Gleason and Atherton almost ruined it for me) and the fact that it looks incredibly dated now, Die Hard still remains my No. 1 choice. For a while, I liked Die Hard 2 better, but that's just nuts.

For a while, I actually considered "Speed" a better action flick because it just does not stop. I came to my senses -- seeing how the supporting players on the bus are even worse than the folks on the ground in "Die Hard" and the subway scene was just a waste -- but it's still in my Top 10.

The director's cut of the "Lethal Weapon" actually heightens my opinion of the movie because it paints a deeper picture of Riggs and Murtaugh. However, the entire franchise died as soon as they knocked on Joe Pesci's hotel-room door in LW2. I can't even remember a thing about LW3.

"Alien" will always be better than "Aliens" in my book, but they are really two different kinds of movies. I never thought "Alien" was an action movie.

"Predator" was fun. I always like amuse myself by picturing the cast asking the director how they can add more emotional nuance to their character.