To celebrate the release of my new review book that’s named after Bruce Willis it’s only appropriate that I review a Bruce movie I never reviewed before. And by far the most requested title in that category is the notorious-flop-turned-minor-cult-movie HUDSON HAWK.
I’ll start by laying out the three basic schools of thought about why HUDSON HAWK crashed and burned. (read the rest of this shit…)
TEARS OF THE SUN is a Bruce Willis picture I missed until now. It’s about Nigerian refugees fleeing for Cameroon after anti-democratic military guys assassinate the president and his family and go around “ethnic cleansing” innocent people. I know, sounds kind of racist, but the secret is Bruce doesn’t play a Nigerian, he is not in blackface. He plays the lieutenant of an elite Navy SEALS unit sent in by Tom Skerritt (playing the twin brother of his character from TOP GUN, in my opinion) to rescue a Christian aid worker played by Monica Belluci. (read the rest of this shit…)
It might be hard for some of you youths to believe, but there was a time when our boy Bruce
1. could never be thought of as an action star and
2. had some hair.
In those pre-DIE HARD, mid-MOONLIGHTING days it made more sense than anything for Bruce to star in a Blake Edwards comedy. He was kind of thought of as a hip young smartass comedy star, instead of a smoldering veteran action star who can also be funny. (read the rest of this shit…)
My new review collection YIPPEE-KY YAY MOVIEGOER comes out at the end of this month, and since it’s named after Bruce Willis I figured I should celebrate by digging out some of the Bruce movies I’ve never seen or don’t remember much and write reviews of them. And what better place to start than his hour long 1987 HBO music special THE RETURN OF BRUNO? Well, I’m sure there are better places. But this is one possible place.
I believe in something called Karaoke Syndrome. It’s something that many famous actors suffer from. Everybody dreams of being a rock star, even if they’re already a movie star, so they try to use their projects as excuses to get on stage and fuck around with a guitar or microphone. One famous victim of KS is Mike Meyers, whose characters in WAYNE’S WORLD, AUSTIN POWERS and THE LOVE GURU all had to be in bands. Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi also suffered from KS (did the Blues Brothers and bee people things on SNL even count as comedy?) but luckily they channeled it into one of the best comedies of all time. (read the rest of this shit…)
Jimbolo kindly put this link in some comments, but it was cool enough I thought I should give it its own post. The cartoon band “Gorillaz” (who once named a song after Clint) have yet another cool video, this one a tribute to muscle cars and car chase movies, and guest starring a favorite actor of mine, I will not say who other than that I gave it away in the subject line and he is pictured to the left and to the right. Another hint: this is the first time he has chased after cartoon characters trying to kill them since BEAVIS AND BUTTHEAD DO AMERICA. Unless you count SIN CITY.
Speaking of (SPOILER) Bruce, I also want to call attention to the new banner to the right, advertising my new book YIPPEE KI-YAY MOVIEGOER: WRITINGS ON BRUCE WILLIS, BADASS CINEMA AND OTHER IMPORTANT TOPICS. It’s a collection of some of my (and your) favorite reviews and it comes out– well, I thought at the end of this month, but Amazon says April 27th now. I’ll have to ask my publisher. Anyway, please help me spread the word on this one, I’m not sure how the hell I’m gonna convince people to buy it, but I think we all agree that if they do buy it it will change their lives forever and make their children smarter and possibly even work as some sort of a renewable fuel source. Also it smells like Seagram’s Golden Wine Cooler.
You give up? Okay, it’s Bruce Willis in the video.
In ASSASSINATION OF A HIGH SCHOOL PRESIDENT Bruce plays Kirkpatrick, a grizzled Gulf War vet turned private high school principal who must use his elite combat skills and overcome great odds to retake the school when it comes under siege by an army of guerillas intent on murdering the student body president because they don’t like the theme for the homecoming dance.
That’s not true. I made up everything after the word “principal.” Bruce does play the principal and he does always talk about Iraq. He could almost be the same character from PLANET TERROR. He’s a hostile disciplinarian who’s driven into a fury when students chew gum. He also leads the school in a singalong of a patriotic song he wrote. But it’s not an action movie and he’s not the star. (read the rest of this shit…)
SURROGATES is TERMINATOR 3 director Jon Mostow (plus the writers of TERMINATOR 3-4) doing another robot movie, this time free of the expectations and mythology (and budget, from the looks of it) of the TERMINATOR series. The only thing they’re chained to is the “graphic novel” the ads say it’s based on, which means a comic book. Luckily they don’t have to be too careful about adapting it because nobody ever heard of it until it was being made into a movie. You show me someone who has read it and I’ll show you the guy that did the copy editing. I was gonna say the mom of the guy who wrote it but I doubt she read it either. This is not some iconic one everybody knows like Alan Moore’s Watchmen or Garfield’s Big Fat Hairy Deal. (read the rest of this shit…)
LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD: 2-DISC ALLOWED TO SAY ‘MOTHERFUCKER’ EDITION
“YIPPEE KI YAY, MOVIE FANS!” That’s what some dipshit wrote on the back of the new LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD dvd. But in the new unrated cut of the movie itself John McClane is allowed to live free and say the whole legendary, maybe-shouldn’t-have-become-part-of-the-DIE-HARD-formula catch phrase. Say goodbye to “Yippee ki yay mother(gunshot).” It’s out the window like Hans Gruber.
The new cut is not drastically, hugely or monumentally different. If you hated the theatrical version you’ll still hate this one. The story is the same, I didn’t notice any scenes removed or added, there’s no new narration or a corny shot of a unicorn that’s supposed to make you see the whole movie in a new light. McClane still doesn’t make good on his threat to beat Kevin Smith’s character to death – not even in a deleted scene, unless it’s one a them “easter eggs” and I just didn’t find it. I’ll keep looking. (read the rest of this shit…)
YOJIMBO
and
FISTFUL OF DOLLARS
and – why the hell not –
LAST MAN STANDING
I’ve been doing alot of themed movie-watching lately and I don’t want that to grow stale, so I decided to mix things up a little. Three movies starring my favorite badasses, but from different years and different countries. Just a real variety of material here. YOJIMBO is about this bad motherfucker who wanders into a small town torn apart by two warring gangs, and he goes back and forth working for them, plays them against each other, rescues a woman from them then gets beaten up real bad but escapes and hides out and then tricks them some more and also I forgot to mention there’s alot of good jokes about the town coffin maker getting business from his activities. FISTFUL OF DOLLARS, on the other hand, is about this bad motherfucker who wa– hey, wait a minute! (read the rest of this shit…)
SPOILER ALERT !!
Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.
I haven’t seen this one yet. Almost went to a midnight show tonight, but it just didn’t time out right. But honestly, you guys don’t care what I have to say about this. You probably don’t care what Quint or Harry have to say, either. Or Capone. Or Massawyrm. Or anyone here at the site except for one man… the guy whose original rant about the PG-13 rating ended up summoning Bruce “Walter B” Willis out of the ether in one of the craziest talkback moments of all time.
Yes, that’s right. It’s time for Vern’s review of LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD. Which means it’s time for me to piss off and hand over the stage to him:
“No one has that power. There is a much more powerful guy in Hollywood, and his name is Rupert Murdoch. It’s his corporation. I only work there.” –Bruce Willis to Vanity Fair, on not being able to do an R-rated DIE HARD
“This city is like a big CHICKEN, waiting to get PLUCKED.” –SCARFACE, edited for TV version
Fellas–
DIE HARD, the motion picture, characters and their likenesses, are the copyrighted intellectual property of the Twentieth Century Fox Corporation. To them DIE HARD is a franchise, a license, a property, a brand, a tentpole, a consumer product, an opportunity for cross promotion with Arby’s and whichever candy bar it was. To them DIE HARD is a dollar amount for an opening weekend, a domestic gross balanced against a marketing budget. But to the rest of the world, to the people with beating hearts, DIE HARD is something more. (read the rest of this shit…)
Toss me a couple bucks a month, support the good shit, also get access to a bunch of exclusive writing. This is my primary source of writing money that has allowed me to cut down to part time at the day job. Thank you!
(NOTE: My ten year contract has passed on the Titan books, so I don't get residuals on them like I do WORM ON A HOOK and NIKETOWN, but I would love for you to read them because I'm proud of them)
EXTRA CREDIT: Review them on Amazon! That would really help me out. Unless you didn't like them, in which case forget I said anything.
