tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497928641398322495.post4698782350507856471..comments2024-03-23T12:33:33.918-04:00Comments on Junta Juleil's Culture Shock: Film Review: DIE HARD (1988, John McTiernan)Sean Gillhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00537515557596273876noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497928641398322495.post-28687621829395760582016-01-04T20:39:50.356-05:002016-01-04T20:39:50.356-05:00J.D.,
Thanks, bud––and agreed re: Willis' eve...J.D.,<br /><br />Thanks, bud––and agreed re: Willis' everyman relatability. Bochner really lends his yuppie scumbag an undercurrent of the pathetic; his final scene is a mini-masterpiece of comedy flowing into tension flowing into horror!Sean Gillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00537515557596273876noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497928641398322495.post-18155863549645293252015-12-31T19:05:14.333-05:002015-12-31T19:05:14.333-05:00I too have a soft spot for DIE HARD 2, which looks...I too have a soft spot for DIE HARD 2, which looks like a masterpiece compared to the last two DIE HARD movies but, of course, the first one is where it's at for all the reasons you so eloquently and entertainingly mentioned. It is the little details that make this film so good and Bruce Willis so relatable. He's not an invincible one-man army that Schwarzenegger and Stallone were at the time but someone who is prone to doubts, fears and actually gets hurt! Good point about McClane looking like he walked out of THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE charnel house at the end of the film. Hah. I hadn't thought of that.<br /><br />I'm so glad you mentioned Bochner's awesomely coked-up yuppie scumbag. He is so entertaining to watch that I always feel a slight twinge of sadness when his character is bumped off.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08164105442273577128noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497928641398322495.post-1858931664051567702015-12-29T22:04:15.814-05:002015-12-29T22:04:15.814-05:00Mike,
Glad you enjoyed, and agreed re: the Godunov...Mike,<br />Glad you enjoyed, and agreed re: the Godunov pop-up––and, hey, it works! Hope you got enough egg nog, bud!<br /><br />Dustin,<br />And it's not New Year's till William Sadler does naked yoga? (Though I do have a soft spot for DIE HARD 2, despite the overall diminishing returns.) <br /><br />John,<br />Yeah, it's been a tradition for, say, ten of my last sixteen Christmas eves? Glad you enjoyed, and I must also tip my hat to Jan de Bont, who apparently parleyed that DP's eye into such luminous directorial work as SPEED 2! (There's plenty of other shout-outs that I missed, too, including Bonnie Bedelia, Michael Kamen, Clarence Gilyard Jr. and many more...)Sean Gillhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00537515557596273876noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497928641398322495.post-42756307110574257352015-12-29T19:57:14.149-05:002015-12-29T19:57:14.149-05:00Glad to see we share the same DIE HARD sentiment, ...Glad to see we share the same DIE HARD sentiment, like most guys our age. I used to watch it religiously every Christmas Eve.<br /><br />Bravo on the review, I would only add one thing to your list: Jan de Bont's cinematography. It perfectly captured the shine and glint of every twinkle light to major explosion. Lens flares galore!!!Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05258371836967584570noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497928641398322495.post-30901114419067362892015-12-29T19:55:22.541-05:002015-12-29T19:55:22.541-05:00This comment has been removed by the author.Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05258371836967584570noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497928641398322495.post-46928000034506218602015-12-28T21:45:10.744-05:002015-12-28T21:45:10.744-05:00It's not officially Christmas until Hans Grube...It's not officially Christmas until Hans Gruber falls off the Nakatomi tower.<br /><br />Don't mess with the LAPD young man, you'll get the horns...<br /><br />-DDustinChttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04409073758369830577noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5497928641398322495.post-89948247873739188102015-12-26T18:52:10.401-05:002015-12-26T18:52:10.401-05:00Hear, hear! As a late comer to Die Hard myself, I ...Hear, hear! As a late comer to Die Hard myself, I have to say that at first, I laughed out loud at the Godunov last-minute pop-up at the end -- so over the top it played more like a parody of that type of scene! Then I recalled one day when I was working at the record shop ling ago, and someone threw on an old Deep Purple record. There was this one guitar solo where the guy goes into this little repeated classical-motif flourish, the sort of thing I'd heard a thousand times from a thousand slicker yet more generic metal bands. The few of us working that day marveled at how clunky it sounded! But over time, I was able to see how much cooler that Deep Purple track was than its legion of imitators, simply because, in all likelihood, nobody showed Richie Blackmore or whomever how to do that -- he had no template. What I'm getting at here is that the Die Hard pop-up scare might appear clunky not because it became common in the intervening years, but because it became SO common that it could be parodied in such a way that the parodies actually resemble the original. Maybe McTiernan just had no template! Although, 1988 is kinda late in terms of action classics, so maybe I'm all wrong here. Or maybe I've just had too much egg nog!Mike B.https://www.blogger.com/profile/18002724434110207883noreply@blogger.com