Die Hard 5: A Good Day to Die Hard - Dir. John Moore (The Die Hard Project #5 - JM)

Die Hard 5: A Good Day to Die Hard (2013)

Dir: John Moore

Die Hard takes a Walk
by
Jay Maronde

                Die Hard 5: A  Good Day to Die Hard is a movie that takes a walk, and I don’t mean that because for the first time John McClane leaves America for his adventure—I mean it in the context of the pitcher who beans the batter and says, “take your base.” Very sadly, this movie is atrocious (like worse than all the bad reviews of the previous four installments combined). Don’t get me wrong, I love DIE HARD, John McClane, and action movies, and by all means there are a ton of outstanding action sequences, but otherwise this movie is complete and utter capitalistic Hollywood garbage. The longer you watch this movie, the more it becomes apparent that the producers were pulling out all the stops for the action scenes, and if they had put 1/10 of the time, energy, and money into producing a movie that contained something of a plot and slightly better writing, this review would read very differently.  But as it stands this is trash, remarkable trash.

                Let’s start with Bruce. He’s awesome and more “die hardish” than ever. But he’s working with nothing for a script.  Every single thing he does is the obvious silly Hollywood plot choice. And sadly, much like an older Roger Moore playing James Bond, his age does detract from the movie. Also, instead of this movie being a buddy film, it’s more of a father/son team up. Which brings us to the new star of the Die Hard series: Jai Courtney playing John “Jack” McClane, Jr. Personally I don’t feel as though Courtney was that poor of a casting  choice, but he’s certainly not even half as good as Shia LaBeouf as Indiana Jones’ son. Further, his role in the film (which I won’t give away) is completely ridiculous: it’s merely a way to put Willis in Russia. Also while on the topic of actors I would like to acknowledge Mary Elizabeth Winsted reprising her wonderful performance from DH4 as Lucy McClane (John’s daughter and Jack’s sister).  Miss Winsted was outstanding and was more than decent in her cameo performance in this film.  However, she looks so much different from the last film that I honestly had no idea it was her until the credits rolled and spent a big part of the experience troubled by this. The rest of the actors are decent character actors playing stereotypical Russian gangsters and again they seem to be doing as much as they can with the poor-to-bad script that they are working with.

Not to let the director off the hook: at no point during this entire film do you feel like Moore had any creative control or self-expression.  To be honest, a decently well programmed robot could have probably churned out more original garbage.

                I’m so sad to have to give the latest installment in one of my favorite series a poor review, but on the brighter side of things the movie made more than 3 times its budget from ticket revenues, so for a film which was intentionally just Hollywood capitalistic trash, I suppose it achieved its goals remarkably well.

Roger Ebert - 1942 - 2013

Obituaries do not make for popular posts but they only appear on Flying Houses when the person in question has played an indispensable role in the development of the state of the art presented herein.
In terms of the methodology of Flying Houses, there is no more influential person than Roger Ebert.  He changed the medium of the review, and I have always endeavored to live up to the very high standard that he set.

He didn't create the medium, but he certainly deserves to be placed in the top ten most important people in the history of cinema.  Back in the 1990's before Gene Siskel died too young, people would make fun of Ebert because he was fat.  Then later on, he lost his ability to eat, and speak with a human voice, and people championed him as the survivor par excellence.  Lately, as I saw Richard Roeper post more reviews on www.rogerebert.com, I started to fear that Ebert was not writing as many reviews because his condition had worsened.  I am sad that I will not know whether he agreed with Roeper or not on A Good Day to Die Hard.

Before I delve into this obituary, I want to highlight two things.  First, a question that was asked by a reader many years ago, and was printed in the 1996 Film Companion that Ebert released:

"Q: Help me settle something.  If Writer A and Writer B both wrote their opinions on a film--both with diligence and pride in their work--what difference in the two pieces would identify Writer A as a Film Critic and Writer B as someone just offering an opinion?  Take the weekly feature you see in some papers, where kids review films.  At what point do they cross the line, and can be called a Critics as opposed to reviewers?  Is there some sort of certification program, like taking the Sally Struthers correspondence course in gun repair? (Andy Ihnatko, Westwood, MA)

A: This is a fascinating question, not unrelated to, "at what point do we know Swift doesn't really intend for the starving Irish to eat their babies?"  The noncritic Reviewer will often betray himself by these mistakes:
(1) Pretense of objectivity;
(2) reluctance to introduce extraneous knowledge;
(3) predictions of which audiences will or will not enjoy the film;
(4) bashfulness about writing in the first person;
(5) distancing self from actual experience of viewing the film;
(6) an overwritten first paragraph.  The genuine Critic will write in such a way as to acknowledge that he had a subjective personal experience which he wants to share with you, and which reminded him of other films or other subjects.  He will wear his knowledge lightly and never presume to speak for other than himself." (920)
***
Ebert wrote for the common film-goer.  He did not write in a high-handed style, and he did not believe in an objective standard of film criticism.  And it makes sense.  Sometimes we can tell when there is bad acting.  That is a given.  A fair portion of the population has some experience in acting.  Sometimes we can tell when there is bad writing, too.  But it is not often that we walk out of a movie and say, "Man, that cinematography was so bad!" Ebert might remark upon the cinematography, if it was good, and he might have remarked about the superiority of the letterbox format over pan-and-scan, but otherwise his writing was addressed at the average moviegoer.  And he responded to them.  Second thing I wanted to mention:

When I was 17, I went to Old Orchard Mall in Skokie, IL and attempted to buy a ticket for the film Requiem for a Dream.  I was not allowed in.  I argued for a bit with the people in charge there, but I lamented my plight in an e-mail to Roger Ebert.  In his review of that film, he wrote that the film's NC-17 rating was unfortunate, because it was specifically the type of film that teenagers should see, because it showed how horrible drug addiction could get.  I wrote that this was just so unfair, man.  And he wrote back, "I know, I know.  Damn."
***
Two sentences.  They didn't change my life, but they made me realize that Roger Ebert was a very special type of celebrity: he was "one of us."

Every critic (whether it be film, theater, music, or literature) should study the work of Roger Ebert.  I never took a Cinema Studies course at NYU.  Maybe they do assign some his reviews, but my presumption is that they do not.  But they should.  I have often debated with my colleague (my "Siskel," if you will) Jay Maronde about the difference between a "film" and a "movie."  Ebert understood he could give four star reviews to either (his four-star reviews include Less Than Zero, Dick Tracy, Drugstore Cowboy, Lethal Weapon, Return of the Jedi, Who Framed Roger Rabbit, What's Eating Gilbert Grape?, Superman, Superman II, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and L.A. Story).

I am deeply saddened by his passing and just wanted to state that the work of this blog is my attempt at carrying out his mandate on how to be a Critic, rather than a Reviewer.

Live Free or Die Hard - Dir. Len Wiseman (The Die Hard Project #4 - JK)

Live Free or Die Hard (2007)

Director - Len Wiseman

Post 9/11 America Writ Large 

by 

Jack Knorps

The Die Hard films have always held a special place in my heart because Die Hard with a Vengeance was the first R-rated film that I saw in the movie theater.  I would say that though the film technically qualifies for an R-rating, there is nothing so objectionable about it that should worry parents.  Of course there is gun violence, but Live Free or Die Hard is every bit as violent as its predecessor and only earns a PG-13 rating.  So this movie is okay for teens but the last one was not.  If anyone wants to write an essay about the irrationality of the MPAA, then a comparison of these two films and the stated reasons for their ratings will provide a good case study.

I saw Die Hard with a Vengeance when I was 12 and I saw Live Free or Die Hard when I was 24--both in the movie theater.  You see I loved Die Hard with a Vengeance, so I was very excited when a sequel was announced after such a long "quiet" period.  I had never even seen the first two Die Hards.  Later I would move to Los Angeles and watch Die Hard from a small apartment in Silver Lake,  during a time when I would often travel to the Nakatomi Plaza location (Century City) for job interviews.  That film was ahead of its time in 1988 (except perhaps for the reference to "poison pills"--those were soooooo 1985), and its sequel was "with the times" in 1990, and Die Hard with a Vengeance was also current with populist American sentiment in 1995.  The five-year wait for that film seemed long, but the 12 year wait for this one seemed to signal a break in tradition.  Now with a six-year gap for A Good Day to Die Hard, the franchise seems to have a questionable boom-and-bust cycle.

But Live Free or Die Hard is no bust--in fact, I was trying to rank the films on my own, and it is near the top.

#1: Die Hard with a Vengeance
#2: Die Hard
#3: Live Free or Die Hard 
#4: Die Harder
#5: A Good Day to Die Hard (?)

I leave the question mark because I've yet to see it, but yes, it was hard for me to choose between this film and the original as the second-best film in the series--but it cannot touch Vengeance.

Die Hard wins out in second-place because of Alan Rickman's performance, the originality of the film at the time, and the excellent use of Christmas music.  Timothy Olyphant is passable as this film's villain, but ultimately cannot stand in the shoes of Rickman or Jeremy Irons--who deserves to be named one of the top five villains in the history of cinema for his performance in that film.

My colleague Mr. Maronde pointedly argued that Die Hard with a Vengeance is a beautiful film because it is an ode to New York City at the height of its 1990s splendor.  Live Free or Die Hard is a reaction to 9/11, and certainly some of the images of this film are so strong that it easily lands in 3-star territory (you must admit that the "hoax" in this film--which could be a clever commentary on the Separation of Powers and the ultimate wielder of governmental authority in America--had you fooled the first time, too).  Olyphant plays a nerdy former government contractor in homeland security.  He conducts a "fire sale" (I will not define the term) and the scale of this endeavor is also what takes the movie to 3-star territory: this is certainly the most audacious act of terrorism that the Die Hard movies have portrayed yet.

The Die Hard films always seem to have thieves posing as terrorists--and this one is no different, except you have thieves posing as "potential" terrorists--Olyphant believes his actions are justified because he is showing the government what it did not want to know--that the entire domestic infrastructure could be hacked, creating real chaos.

John McClane is, for some reason, hanging out in a college parking lot, spying on his daughter making out with another dude.  His daughter is Lucy Gennaro (not McClane) and her parents have divorced since the last film (or were they already divorced in 1995?  I can't be sure...).  He's still a cop for the NYPD but certainly appears to be approaching retirement.  He gets a random phone call after scaring his daughter's boyfriend and is told to go pick up a college kid played by Justin Long.

Justin Long may be controversial (a very funny moment of this film shows him with a very high-tech cell phone in 2007--it flips so you can text!) for his work in Apple commercials, but he won me over with this movie.  I always found him to be an annoying hipster-ish persona--the perfect image of a Mac User--but he does not act like such a smartypants in this movie.  Oh there is a moment where he explains why he doesn't listen to the news and he makes fun of what Bruce Willis likes to listen to on the radio, but he is quickly brought back to planet Earth as he is nearly killed a dozen or more times.

In terms of "sidekicks," Al is the best sidekick John McClane has (Samuel L. Jackson is #2, and probably the only problem with Die Hard with a Vengeance is that their "buddy-buddy" quality is, at times, feigned or uneven), and Justin Long is passable.  In general this is a very "passable" film, but politically it is the most interesting.

It beautifully depicts the paranoia of the post-9/11 world and (I really believe) is prophetic.  This film was released in May 2007.  In other words, it was released right at the time the markets were about to go bust, and the "thieves" in this film certainly have an analogue in the real life robber barons on Wall Street.  One is intrigued by the prospect of A Good Day to Die Hard (terrible reviews notwithstanding) as each film tends to react towards recent domestic trends in politics (Die Hard = corporate raiding; Die Harder = ?; Die Hard with a Vengeance = racism; Live Free or Die Hard = e-terrorism/Anonymous-style hackery; A Good Day to Die Hard = ? (economic desperation?)).

Len Wiseman does not have a vision quite like John McTiernan (who directed the two best films in the series) but he made a movie that was fun to go see in the movie theater.  I had about as much fun seeing this PG-13 movie as I did that R-rated movie some twelve years earlier.

And the Kevin Smith cameo is priceless.  Anytime you have Bruce Willis checking out a poster and Kevin Smith asking him, "You a fan of the Fett?" you have automatically made a good movie.

Die Hard - Dir. John McTiernan (The Die Hard Project #1 - JM)

Today we commence The Die Hard Project.  Better late than never....

Die Hard (1988)

Dir: John McTiernan

The Detective Turned Super Cop

by Jay Maronde

               

                In the summer of 1988, a Christmas movie was released. This movie, staring a then-upcoming actor named Bruce Willis would later be described as the standard to which all other action movies must be compared, and with this director John McTiernan gave birth to a franchise of movies so epic that that fifth in the series is due to be released this week, 25 years later! Of course, this movie is the original Die Hard, and as we moviegoers eagerly await the release of this year’s Die Hard 5: A Good Day to Die Hard, the fine staff at Flying Houses have decided to give you a little recap in case you may have missed or forgotten anything in the past 25 years.

                Die Hard was adapted from a novel titled Nothing Lasts Forever written by Roderick Thorpe. Mr. Thorpe had previously written a little book called The Detective, which was so popular that it had been made into a 1968 movie starring none other than “old blue eyes” himself, Frank Sinatra.  After the success of The Detective, Mr. Thorpe wrote a sequel with full intentions of it being made into a movie. Praise was lavished on this book from many venues and eventually Twentieth Century Fox agreed to begin production. As he was contractually obligated, Sinatra was given the right of first refusal to play the lead role.  He refused, and from here began one of the most extensive searches for a lead male actor in Hollywood history. When I say extensive I truly mean it, as the role of John McClane was offered to a laundry list of the best male actors in a generation before Bruce Willis finally accepted the role. This list included Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nick Nolte, Richard Dean Anderson, Don Johnson, Sly Stallone, Burt Reynolds, Richard Gere, Mel Gibson, Harrison Ford, Tom Berenger, Robert Deniro, and Charles Bronson.

When Bruce Willis was finally convinced to take the role it was in no small part due to Rupert Murdoch’s personal offer of five million dollars. With a lead actor signed, a director was needed, and after being approached numerous times John McTiernan eventually agreed with the stipulation that he be allowed to “lighten the edges” of a script which he had already twice refused claiming that it was “a real nasty piece of work.”

                John McTiernan then began, scene-by-scene, to assemble what we have already described as the pinnacle of the entire action movie genre. First and foremost, the original script called for terrorists who were really terrorists, and McTiernan immediately turned them into thieves masquerading as terrorists so that “the audience could enjoy them stealing a boatload of money.” Further, the original “Detective” was more of a super cop, and McTiernan had this idea that the role should be more of an “everyman.” As such he felt Willis was perfect for the role and with some more minor tweaks to the original story, the Die Hard we all know and love came about. McTiernan’s vision was not small though, and as such a massive moviemaking process was undertaken, it was greatly due to this big comprehensive vision that Die Hard is such a great movie.

Besides his script work in order to make the movie lighter and more fun McTiernan also demanded the highest caliber of music from his sound designer Michael Kamen. The idea to use Beethoven as the theme music for most of the movie was McTiernan’s, and initially Kamen staunchly refused, saying that he would gladly butcher the entire catalogue of Wagner or Schubert for the movie, but the thought of using lovely Ludwig Van was too much for him to stomach. To counter this, McTiernan explained to him that he wanted the movie to feel inspired by the Ultra Violence of Director Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange, and Kamen, being a Kubrick fan himself, eventually consented.

This however wasn’t McTiernan’s only slick move to make Die Hard the fantastic film that it is: he also decided that he needed a real life office tower to shoot the exteriors of Nakatomi Tower. Being that not too many buildings of that size are unoccupied and or available for almost complete demolition, he came up with an interesting solution: he would use 20^th Century Fox’s brand new 90% completed office tower (and of course Fox charged themselves rent on their own building). They also required the production team to import from Italy enough marble to retile all the plazas and stairs outside the building.

                Besides a great set, great action, and a great hero, any good action movie needs one final thing to really reach the other plateaus that the Die Hard films have reached: a resoundingly evil villain.  To fill this role the producers and director gave a British stage actor (of very high repute) his first role on the silver screen. At the time the directors and producers were sure he would be good, but Alan Rickman was so good in the role of Hans Gruber, that over two decades later he’s still the man to call when you need a really evil villain. Rickman is exquisite, and McTiernan’s particular high intensity directorial style was essential in achieving this wonderful performance from a film novice. The clearest example of this delightful collaboration comes later in the movie when McClane meets Hans. In the original script there was never a meeting between these two lead characters and the producers had lamented this extensively. One day during rehearsals McTiernan discovered that Rickman was quite talented at faking an American accent and as such the scene was born. The part of this scene that really highlights both of their genius is while Hans is speaking quite convincingly with a Midwestern American accent, McClane offers him a cigarette, and while non smokers may have never picked up on this subtle detail, Hans smokes like a European. This subtle nuance—along with many others—added a level of detail to the movie that is a big part of the reason why it stands out. As I’ve mentioned before, it’s quite apparent that McTiernan went scene-by-scene to make this movie as utterly fantastic as it is.

                While I could go on and on about how delightful this movie is, it would be completely remiss not to mention the outstanding co-stars. Bonnie Bedelia is fantastic as John McClane’s estranged wife—beautiful, but not someone that an Everyman couldn’t attain. Reginald Vel Johnson as the first cop on the scene and John’s radio ally on the outside was perfectly cast, especially considering that at that time he was already America’s favorite police officer from being one of the stars (opposite one Steve Urkel) from television’s Family Matters.

                John McTiernan had a tremendous vision for Die Hard that was so well executed that it has become the seminal action movie. By really demanding the best from all his actors and production staff he made a movie which has not only stood the test of time, but 25 years later still has America clamoring for more.