July 29th, 2007 by Jaybrams
It was nice to have a second PMDN (Poor Man’s Date Night) this week as the kids spent the night with the Mimi. We decided to finish up the original Die Hard trilogy in one fail swoop. I’ll start with DH2:Die Harder (1990).
A lot of people were telling me this was better than the original, and I have to disagree. Don’t get me wrong, I liked it a lot. Instead of telling why I liked it, lets talk about why I’ll take DH over DH2.
1) John McClane is more authentic every-man in the first as opposed to having a true hero “Cowboy” mentality in the second. Both are situations of desperation that he is thrust into, but he is a much more unwilling participant in the first one. In DH2, he forces himself into the situation and is more than willing to get involved. Both work for his character, I just prefer the attitude he had in the first.
2) The story line suffers quite a bit. I’m not necessarily one of those “realists” that doesn’t like a little poetic license in movies… give me ridiculous action and “that could never happen” moments. I enjoy them. But to me there were just too many things that didn’t make logical sense… seriously, I could list a very large handful. No one in their right mind would make some of the decisions that the good guys in this movie were making. To top it off, I’d say it was fairly predictable.
3) William Sadler is not nude in the first one. And that’s a good thing.
Quickly, I’ll say despite these three things, i’d still give it about a 7 out of 10… or 3.5 out of 5… or 1.4 thumbs up (out of 2) for its sheer entertainment value.
Now onto DH:With a Vengence (1995).
There’s really not much to say other than it is not near as good as either of the others. The riddles were cute and the bad guy was pretty clever, but the story line really began to suffer in this one. “Hey Zues” was a great character (Sam L Jackson) and their is a good deal more humor in this offering, but I just couldn’t connect what was going on with any sort of reality. I HATED the character John McClane became during the 5 year hiatus; not his bad-assness (which was still there), but the fact that his life had fallen apart. I much prefered the John McClane in DH that you could sense wanted to make things right with his wife; and I really liked the McClane in DH2 that genuinely loved his wife. What happened to that guy? So, bottom line, enjoyed the action, enjoyed the relationship between McClane and Zues, but can’t put it above 3 stars, teetering on 2.5.
So, there you have it… i’m much more cultured now. Looking forward to Live Free or Die Hard at some point.
Popularity: 15% [?]
July 26th, 2007 by Jaybrams
Die Hard (1988)
So I was at Sam’s Club and saw the Die Hard trilogy on sale for $16… All three $16. Can’t go wrong there. I’ve never seen them, but Bruce Willis is the man and I’ve heard nothing but good… I’m a sucker for action anyway.
Let me just say… the first installment did not disappoint at all. From the early humorous exchange between John McClane and Argyle the Limo Driver all the way to the final credits… well, the bad guy coming out at the end was a bit cliche, but i wasn’t paying attention to that sort of thing in 1988, so maybe this was not cliche back then.
And it was actually pretty intelligently written overall. Some action flicks turn out to be so ridiculous that its all about the action and the plot / story suffers, but the script holds its own in this case… Now, judging from the previews of 4.0 i’m not sure how long this trend will continue as I catch up with series.
With the first watch, i’m going to definitely have to give this a 4.5 out of 5. The bad guy at the end just knocked it down a notch.
Yippee-ki-yay
Popularity: 19% [?]
May 24th, 2007 by Jaybrams
The wife and I have designated Wed night as our “Poor Man’s Date Night.” Basically it’s a night just for us, after the kids go to bed… no working out, no church duties, no practicing guitar, and probably no 360 (dang). This is night we generally use to watch one of our Blockbuster Online movies. We do the cheapy plan: One out at a time. This week:
A History of Violence (2005)
One of the very few pitfalls of online rental is the occasional memory lapse that your Q needs to be updated. We don’t get to see a lot in the theaters, so we should be updating it on a regular basis, but we don’t. Every now-and-again we’ll spend a good hour just rummaging through the available titles looking for possible gems we might have missed based on actors / directors we generally like… movies that got little play in theaters and were undermarketed. This is how we came across A History of Violence, starring Viggo Mortenson and Ed Harris… We like Viggo, my wife throws this on the Q months ago, suddenly it’s at our door due to lack of Q updating.
Anytime you start a review by stating “This is a 90 minute movie that seemed to last about 180″ you know something is wrong, but that is exactly what this felt like. Sometimes a slow movie can still hold your interest, and this one did for about 20 minutes… or maybe it was 40… i’m not sure, it’s hard to convert actual minutes into “History” minutes.
After the initial set up, the plot twists are not really twists… more like straight dead end roads that are so predictably insipid my 1st grader could’ve seen them coming a mile away. About the only shocking moments in this movie is the sudden aggressive and violent sex scene that really doesn’t even fit… (hindsight suggest this isn’t too surprising as the director has at least one NC-17 movie on his resume along with a bunch of other ridiculously stupid movies).
From a cultural and spiritual perspective, there is very little redeeming quality at all, only a glimpse of a daughter’s (roughly age 8) unconditional love and acceptance for her father when his spouse and older son have distanced themselves. Even still, you get the impression that it is less love and more naivety that drives the acceptance.
Bottom Line: Ignore the 7.5 out of 10 given on IMDB. This is a 3 / 10 at best.
Popularity: 14% [?]
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