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This week, on Movies Born to be Forgotten (Except as Something That, Against Your Better Judgment, You Had a Pretty Good Time Watching Back in the Summer Of ’07):
To celebrate Isaac Slade of the Fray’s new solo career (and Greg’s opening spot at his first solo show,) Isaac joins Greg and Joe to discuss what he calls “one of the best movies he’s ever seen.” Which, it goes without saying, makes him the perfect guest for Great Bad Movies.
This episode has it all: Isaac hearing Bruce Willis’ music for the first time, a henchman who looks exactly like Chris Martin of Coldplay, Kevin Smith rewriting scenes, a standoff between the movie studio and Bruce Willis, people who love this movie, people who question if it’s really a Die Hard movie…. Plus, we create new drinking games and answer important questions about the 3rd best movie to take place during the 4th of July. Long story short, it’s a lot of laughing and a great time.
Note: This transcript has been auto-generated, so… You know… It’s not our fault.
Greg: Joe in the movie we watched this week. Justin Long is a well known hacker who saved by a funny, talented, handsome, humble, famous singer named Bruce Willis. If you and I were famous hackers, and I’m not saying we’re not. Yeah. What famous singer formerly of the band The Fray. Would you want to come save us.
Joe: Would that be Isaac Slade?
Greg: Isaac Slade?
Isaac: Yes. Did somebody ring me via the interwebs?
Greg: Isaac Slade.
Greg: It’s official now. Isaac, welcome to the show. You are second guest!
Isaac: Our middle age of showing. And it is a beautiful thing.
Greg: So I’m not sure how to set this up. Joe and I go way back, and we were best friends from way back. You and I started hanging out, what, 5 or 6 years ago?
Isaac: We met online dating, and we hit it off right away.
Greg: We swiped the correct direction.
Isaac: I don’t I don’t know when we met. I feel like I’ve always known you. Was it six years ago?
Greg: I was going back in text messages that we’ve sent each other. And you famously send amazing texts out of the blue sometimes that are unbelievable. And this one text that you sent me on October 13th, 2022 will explain what we’re doing here. This is the text I got from Isaac Slade 2022.
Isaac: I mean, Die Hard four is still so good. It’s it’s one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.
Greg: One of the best movies you’ve ever seen. And then you in texts after that, you said this might be one of Bruce Wallace’s best movies.
Isaac: Oh my God, 100% no question.
Greg: So this is like peak Bruce Willis and Peak Film for you, which immediately made us best friends when you said this together with.
Isaac: I counted during Covid. I counted all the movies I’ve seen and heard about. I sorted them appropriately into like Love and Mercy and yeah, Love for you. Die hard was.
Greg: So good, we should say right off the bat that the other reason you’re here is because you left the fray a while back and you’re starting your solo career. And are these shows coming up? Your first shows, like officially, is Isaac Slade solo?
Isaac: I was told this was the part just to come on if I’m ready for a comeback.
Greg: I mean, everyone has been saying that.
Isaac: Okay, good. Totally. No no, no. Yes. This will be my very first official solo. Anything public? I’ve done a few, like a bank called and booked me little place. You know, in 28 years, but, No, this is it. It’s my first, first proper shindig.
Greg: So this episode will be coming out right before your two shows on Bash on Island, September 5th and sixth. And I think tickets are still available. Maybe for the sixth.
Isaac: Yeah.
Greg: And the reason we’re doing this year is you invited me to come and do my very first public stand up date in history for the September 5th show. So I will be doing the opening stand up set for your September 5th show. And it’s going to be so much fun.
Isaac: Which is so bold for both of us. The bold and bold of me to ask and bold of you to say yes.
Greg: I mean, it’s coming along really well, and I mean, it’s going to be a struggle to whittle it down to a two hour set.
Isaac: Good, good, good. Mine’s 90 minutes, so that’ll be perfect.
Greg: Okay, perfect. So I win.
Isaac: Yeah.
Greg: Your audience is going to be so excited. Yeah. But anyways, I’m excited. You guys you guys are meeting right now. This is amazing. Joe and Isaac Slade together again for the first time.
Isaac: Where did you guys meet? Which presidential administration did you meet? It?
Joe: It would be Bill Clinton. Bill Clinton?
Greg: Yeah, yeah. Clinton.
Joe: Yeah, we’ve met we’ve met at Baskin-Robbins. And we were 18 years old.
Greg: Yeah, totally. We went to the same high school. See him high school in Bellingham, Washington? Yeah. Joe, do you remember my backup question for the beginning of this episode was Bruce Willis shows up out of nowhere to pick up Justin Long, and there was a time at the, high school where I asked the office to send you one of those notes that, like, like somebody called and they would fold it in half and, like, staple it, and someone would deliver it to the classroom.
Greg: Yeah. And so I went to the office like, hey, I’m so sorry. Can you and I filled out one of those things and stapled it and gave it to them and said, did you get this to just get Tucker? It’s kind of important. And so the office walked this note to Joe’s classroom.
Isaac: Without.
Greg: Reading. Without reading it, I think I stapled it, yeah. Do you remember what that note said?
Joe: Yeah, I do, because I saved it for many, many years. I said, your mom called. You’re adopted.
Greg: Which is the funniest.
Joe: Message I’ve ever gotten.
Greg: It just seemed like you should know. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate that. In your senior year of high school.
Isaac: Did you write that previous, like, was it a different day or did you just stand there and pick it up?
Greg: I filled it out with that in mind.
Joe: I don’t know if anything can happen.
Greg: It’s been downhill since then. Let’s be honest.
Joe: In fact, can you just do that at your stand up show? You’ll just hand that out to every person in the audience and then just walk off.
Greg: Yeah, done. And that’s going to take about two hours. It’s a very long process to get that to each person. Yeah, I.
Isaac: Watch the.
Greg: All right well let’s get to the show.
Joe: Let’s do it.
Greg: You think you can.
Clip: I’m doing America a favor. Is the country willing to pay for it?
Clip: Okay. Just issued a critical alert. The entire network went down. You have no idea who you’re dealing with. Why did you bring a cop into my command center? I’m worried that it’s a basement.
Clip: Who is this man?
Greg: The year is 2007. And get ready for the 2007 movie ever made in history. It’s called Live Free or Die Hard. The fourth Die Hard movie we’re talking about director Len Wiseman from Fremont, California. Joe and I are both from the Bay area teaming up with Bruce Willis, Justin Long, Timothy Olyphant, Maggie Q, The Amazing Cliff Curtis, Kevin Smith shows up in this movie, and of course, Mary Elizabeth Winstead.
Greg: And surprisingly or not surprisingly, the guy who should be in every movie you watch from now on, sung Kang Han from the Fast and Furious movies Tokyo Drift had come out the year before this. Let’s start here with Isaac Slade. Isaac. What makes Live Free or Die Hard a great bad movie?
Isaac: Oh my God, it’s hard to come up with bad things for it. That was on the list. I think the number of explosions or helicopters or shots, however you do the drinking game, you’re wasted by 40 minutes and period. But for me, you know the need for them to top themselves from one, two and three. It felt like mission Impossible was doing it.
Isaac: A lot of other franchises, James Bond, everybody was just pulling out the stops and just it was like a race burn as much cash as you could.
Greg: Totally.
Isaac: It felt like studio execs trying to buy like bigger boats and impress each other. And this one I know I don’t want to rush to the very end of the movie, but the ending is unfathomable. And Bruce Willis has this humor by this point that is somehow still fresh. It never became like a cardboard cut out of itself.
Isaac: A lot of those, Utica repeat sort of phrases and other movies that people would have a franchise. You just roll your eyes when it comes. And his oh my God, when he finally says it in this movie, it’s like one of the greatest moments of my 20s.
Greg: It’s so great. One of the best moments of the George W Bush administration.
Greg: And I completely agree. I completely agree with everything you said, Joe Sky Tucker, what makes Live Free or Die Hard a great bad movie? Well, is it upset?
Isaac: No no no, it’s in it is upset.
Greg: Okay. What’s your relationship with Die Hard for Joe?
Joe: It’s a little rough for me. Okay. I think if everything were the same of this movie, the same cast, same movie, line for line, except for they changed his name to John Smith instead of John McClane. And it’s not Die Hard. Yeah, I love this movie.
Greg: Oh, okay. Yeah.
Joe: Because it’s Die Hard, which the whole conceit of Die Hard is. It’s a contained space. So you have Die Hard and the building you have die hard in an airport, and then you have Die hard in New York, and then this one is like die hard in the 4th of July, a die hard in the eastern seaboard. Right?
Joe: I’m not quite sure when the die hard in a computer is a tron, so it loses me at the conceit of what Die Hard is supposed to be.
Greg: Sure, that is a struggle if you’re trying to be. If you’re going for the compression, they could have done the whole thing in that a massive like tanker truck that they have, that’s like three different containers sewn together.
Joe: Yeah. Where this movie is at its best is when it feels contained. So some of the fight scenes and shootouts in, like in the buildings or in the apartment or that fight scene in somehow they get to West Virginia under odds and Shaw travel logic. So they just like magically get there in ten minutes.
Greg: Right through the night somehow. Yeah.
Joe: No. So those are one that’s at its best to me. It’s at its worst because it’s got the it is so CGI heavy and it just feels like so much of it is filmed on a green screen. That the practical stunts don’t register as much. And that’s where I struggled with it. But I’ll toss it to you, Greg, as sure you’re going to break the tie here.
Joe: Okay. Where do you land on Die Hard for?
Greg: This movie has been a roller coaster for me since it came out. When I saw it, I was like, okay, I don’t was it? It had been like 12 years since a Die Hard movie had come out. I was like, I guess I’ll take it. Yeah. And then the fifth one is so horrible. It was like, all right, well, at least we have four.
Greg: Yeah. And each time I’ve watched it since then, it really here’s my relationship with these movies if I watch one, and it’s been a while since I’ve watched any. I love it. It doesn’t matter which one it is, I will have the greatest time watching it if I watch them in order, which is known to happen in the Christmas season.
Greg: For me, by the time I get to this one, I’m a little I run a little aground. I’m not sure if we should have done it. I will tell you this time when I watch, it was maybe the most I’ve ever enjoyed this film. I loved it so much and I haven’t watched a Die Hard movie since we watched the second best Christmas movie of all time, Die Hard two, in December, obviously, and this is maybe the second or third best 4th of July movie of all time.
Greg: Can we agree on that?
Isaac: After Independence Day.
Greg: After Independence Day, and I asked to throw jaws in there because jaws over the course.
Joe: And born on the 4th of July.
Greg: You know, I’ve actually never seen that.
Isaac: Interestingly, I do want to throw in I’m not a diehard fan. I’ve watched way more know Gibson, Danny Glover movies than I have. Sure, Die Hard, so I’m only coming at it with I was watching Garden State and then I watched Die Hard four, and then I watched Mission Impossible 13 right after that. So I’m viewing it as a standalone, which is really interesting because I don’t know, I don’t know, the typical diehard can see it.
Greg: So have you seen one through three?
Isaac: I think I saw half of one. I don’t think I’ve seen two. I saw five and I threw up in my mouth of that.
Greg: That’s rough. Yeah.
Joe: This movie to me, if you have watched Garden State, this movie makes perfect sense. I frankly, as one of the greatest movies ever made.
Greg: So, it doesn’t have the scene where they change your life. What, are you listening to? The shins, you know? No. Gotta hear this one. No. Change your life, I swear. But otherwise, basically, note for note. Yeah.
Joe: That’s also to me. If I had lower expectations, I’m going in expecting a die Hard movie, and it doesn’t live up to that. But if I again, if I, if it’s not a die hard movie, this is a great action movie. It’s, you know, it’s fun. Yeah, but don’t have it be John McClane.
Isaac: What’s your top three action movie? Either solos or franchises like Who’s Who are your characters?
Joe: Oh man, I’m so glad you asked this question.
Greg: And you’ve come to the right place. I was like, all right.
Joe: I think the greatest action movie ever is Mission Impossible six. The John Wick franchise is, to me, one of the best franchises out there. I am not as much of a fan of the Mission Impossible movies as Greg is, but because of Greg’s fandom, he has won me over.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And then, you know, we, Greg and I have shared, just like our love of movies ever since we knew each other so.
Greg: Totally,
Joe: James Bond movies. So a lot of, like, what are the top three James Bond movies versus the top three? Mission impossible versus the top three? Whatever.
Greg: So this question comes up. Everything you watch, okay.
Joe: Like you can’t. Yeah. And so our abject and complete love, unquestioned love of action movies is, is basically the foundation of our relationship. If you could take that away, I probably hate Greg and would push him into a river if I had to, so.
Isaac: Well, you know, you know your land and you stay in it. Okay, so six was the Eiffel Tower, the French one, and the the pumping of the arm guns and, skydive. Yeah. Okay. That was an incredible action.
Greg: Irrefutable. This is just the truth.
Joe: Yeah. And then you have, Fast and Furious. Which 4 or 5 and six are probably their best movies. And you can throw and Hobbs and Shaw is a one off, which is a fun movie. You know, where David Leach fan. So we have gotten where we go kind of also into the world of the stunt coordinators. And so, you know, for us, like Die Hard sets off a new genre of action movie, kind of the, you know, the Die Hard in, you know, and then that’s been copied a million times since then, you know, kind of every man in a confined space, you know, so think under siege, think they have John
Joe: Wick, which kind of does that new style of fighting? You have Jason Bourne, which does that kind of earlier. So that’s kind of like, getting a little too probably high and mighty about the analysis of these movies, but.
Isaac: Well, I’m curious then, you know, from, I don’t know, for me, I’m coming to this space as an outsider because I’m a musician. The closest thing I ever get to, a thing I worked on for two years and put out in a group is a record. And, you know, by the time I got to my fourth record.
Isaac: But first of all, I could have given a Ted talk on the, conceit of my band. And then I was ready to break that and see it as hard as I could and do something new. So to me, the fact that the central reason for your struggle with this is probably my one of my central reasons for admiring it, that they were willing to shatter their own formula and do something new.
Isaac: And for me, one of the we did in this later, probably, but one of the most compelling pieces that got under my skin was how unnerving it was in oh seven, you know, to think about these systems. And I hadn’t really thought of it. I before. Like, I think as I watched it, I realized how dependent our lives are on technology, and I wanted to go buy groceries the next day just in case.
Isaac: So, I don’t know, maybe that means I’m not a very professional conspiracy theorist, but.
Greg: And you’re you’re recording inside your grain silo right now, right?
Greg: Exactly. Yeah. I think no one was more, annoyed at the conceit of diet on a blink than Bruce Willis. So much so that when Die Hard three was written, it was Die Hard on a boat and he threw it out. And I’m pretty sure that script became under siege. If that didn’t become under siege it became speed to which was on a cruise ship.
Greg: And so starting with the third Die Hard, which takes place in, like, New York across all of Manhattan, he wanted to get rid of that. And so while we kind of feel like Die Hard one and two, the secret there is, is maybe the compression inside the building or at an airport in this movie. They’re kind of trying to get away from that.
Greg: And honestly, I was okay with it this time when I watched it that I was you know, we were just dealing with John McClane later in life. And I think because we, we had kind of looked into Bruce Willis, his disdain for the Die Hard on a blank at this point in the world, I was okay that at least we’re getting John McClane, you know?
Greg: At least we’re getting him, you know, trying to save a family member working against some bad guys. The only thing that isn’t really in this the equation, the die hard equation in this movie is the government workers are pretty good at what they do. It seems like. Yeah. And in the die hard equation of one and two, the secret is the authorities also don’t really know what they’re doing.
Greg: And it really is up to John McClane to beat the bad guys.
Isaac: And so, Joe, you wanted that familiarity with this.
Joe: Yeah, I feel like 16 blocks, which is another Bruce Willis movie, would be a better Die Hard for.
Greg: No. Well, we’ll get to 16 blocks. Yeah, obviously. For sure. But that was directed by Richard Donner, the director of Lethal Weapons one through four. So Lethal Weapon, that’s probably how you say that.
Isaac: It is. It is Lethal Weapon I. But yeah.
Greg: All right, well, now you’re just bragging with your Latin.
Isaac: Well, it’s funny, like the leftover taste in my mouth for, you know, Bruce Willis is vibe in the movie is just. He’s like, saw every time he stands up with amazing skills.
Greg: Like,
Isaac: What else can break I me so maybe that was a, that was, the physical to what he was feeling about the to.
Greg: What’s hilarious about this movie though is Bruce Willis is 51 or 52 while he’s filming this and he’s playing like 52 for 64 or something. He’s playing like a 64 year old in this movie. He seems like the oldest guy in history. Yeah, he’s 52, is 52 years old. So and I feel like he was kind of like 65 for the rest of his movies, you know.
Greg: Well should we get into the movie a little bit. Should we talk about, what it is that we, we like and dislike about this movie? I’m glad that you’re coming with an alternate take, Joe, so that it can be a a good conversation back and forth. I will say, though, you mentioned the stunts and they seem really fake with the CGI.
Greg: There are a couple moments where the CGI is pretty crazy. But watching it this time, it wasn’t as crazy as I thought it was going to be. Bruce Willis I read in an interview he was talking about the cars flipping in that dark kind of tunnel, part. Those actually are cars flipping. And then they kind of put a bunch of different shots together to make them more action filled or whatever.
Greg: So it’s like they’re using CGI to take real objects and make them look stupid, basically in some of the places. But but a lot of times, like when people are flying through the air, it’s really people and they really are like falling onto an airbag or whatever. So I remembered it being much more fake looking than it actually is.
Joe: I should say. I watched this on my computer and so in it is brutal for any time there in front of a green screen, just in general. And there’s a lot of even just when they’re driving in a car and having a conversation that is so clearly just them sitting in a car with like some, some gaffer, like putting a flashlight by them so it looks like they’re driving.
Joe: And so those are the moments that kind of get me. Yeah, I yeah, I just I think my expectations were higher. And this is not a movie that you can have high expectations of and I think enjoy. I think if you come into it that going I just watch Garden State. Let’s watch Die Hard four is probably the greatest movie you’ve ever seen.
Greg: It’s the secret to a great bad movie. I have a low bar I did.
Isaac: I walked in with a super low bar.
Joe: Yeah, that is the secret. That really is when we watch a lot of movies that we’ll watch that if we’re expecting something terrible and it’s just this much better than terrible, it’s like this. This might be the next Citizen Kane that we’re watching.
Isaac: Well, I feel the same way. Maybe about, you do about Die Hard, about James Bond. Like, if they f with James Bond, I will tell every single person I know, like, how I’m doing. Okay, I, I’m struggling a little bit because of James Bond, but so I have the I think I’m just realizing I have that franchise conceit commitment.
Joe: So what’s your take on Daniel Craig as James Bond?
Isaac: Fantastic.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: This is going to be the test of the show now. What are your favorite Daniel Craig movies? Yes, of the James Bond world.
Isaac: Oh, what’s the one where he falls off the train in the beginning?
Greg: Skyfall.
Isaac: That Skyfall. Okay, Skyfall. And then the two after that are my three.
Greg: Oh, yeah. Skyfall, specter and No Time to Die.
Isaac: Were those three all the same bad guy?
Joe: No, the last two are the last two.
Isaac: Okay, there’s one woman that kept coming back.
Joe: She’s in the last two.
Isaac: Okay, so I love Skyfall. Probably because of all the Adele there was, like, so much, so much going on in that era. But then. Yeah. So the last year mean die hards, if you will.
Joe: Yeah. Skyfall might be the best James Bond movie I’ve ever.
Greg: Yeah.
Isaac: Mind blowing. Which one is him walking in on Mexico on the wall in Mexico.
Greg: Specter.
Isaac: Specter. Okay, those two openings. Skyfall. The opening inspector’s opening. I was like, okay, they do really? What they. When they know how to burn $200 million.
Greg: Yeah. Both. Sam Mendez, same director in those two movies.
Isaac: Okay. Who directed the last James Bond?
Greg: Cary Fukunaga okay. From, True Detective season one.
Isaac: Okay. I’m remembering. No, I like Skyfall and then specter one, basically. And then specter two is great to Raimi, right? And it was great.
Greg: But yeah, specter two, that’s what they should have called. No Time to Die. A specter to you to.
Greg: I actually was thinking about James Bond while I was watching Die Hard four. And by the way, I keep calling it Die Hard four in my head because I read that the director, Len Wiseman and Bruce Willis, really wanted this movie to be called Die Hard 4.0, and it was in everywhere on the planet except for the US.
Greg: They took Live Free or Die Hard.
Isaac: It’s a dumb name.
Greg: You think 4.0 is dumb?
Isaac: Yeah. I’m glad they didn’t do that. Sounds European.
Greg: Sounds so un-American, doesn’t it? Yeah.
Isaac: Okay, so here’s the question. Is John McClane more of an American, James Bond or Ethan Hunt.
Joe: Or Ethan Hunt?
Isaac: I guess die hards John would be the James Bond, a baby with Bruce Springsteen.
Greg: Yeah, I think that’s what I was thinking too.
Isaac: I’m the this there’s we were saying that Jersey.
Greg: Yeah. Yeah. And they had a baby and his name was Kevin Smith from new Jersey. And he’s had this movie. Yeah.
Isaac: Is he the J in the Santa. Yeah. It was a.
Greg: He wrote he wrote and directed those movies and he was silent Bob. Yeah. Okay.
Isaac: Kevin Smith that was surprising.
Greg: He rewrote that scene when they got there. They were a couple months into shooting at this point, and Bruce Willis read the pages for the scene, and he said, this isn’t a die hard movie. And he looked at Kevin Smith and said, you write movies, right? And you’re from Jersey? He said, yeah. And he said, would you take a pass at this scene?
Greg: He’s like, sure. So that scene was actually rewritten by Kevin Smith. The scene that Kevin Smith was in.
Isaac: That’s cool. It’s a good scene.
Greg: It is really good. And it has Kevin Smith in basically in one shot sell the bad guy, which is our favorite concept of when they have to explain to you who the bad guy is by listing like how powerful he is. I was sold, yeah, totally. And this comes from the concept of, police officers. They learn when they’re in academy that when you pull somebody over, you have to sell the ticket on them, like, well, you were going 15 miles over the speed limit.
Greg: I’m only going to write a ticket for ten like you want the person to be like, well, thank you for letting me get away with at least five miles an hour over the speed limit. There’s a selling the ticket aspect to being a cop. What? Yeah, it’s. They sell the ticket. So in great bad movies, they have to sell bad guy.
Greg: And oftentimes they have to sell the good guy as well. So Kevin Smith sells the bad guy in this movie. He does a pretty good job. Should we hear him sell the bad guy?
Joe: Absolutely.
Clip: Four years ago DoD recruits Thomas Gabriel to be a cyber spook for him. Okay, first day on the job goes into his bosses and tells him this nation’s security infrastructure is wide open to compromise him. What do they say? We’ll take it under advisement. This dude don’t ease up because he’s committed like you read about. So he breaks into a meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Clip: Okay? And using just the laptop hacks and Norton shuts down our entire defense network. So they put a gun to the man’s head and forced them to stop the hack. Thomas Gabriel’s the guy who shut down Nora with a laptop just to prove a point. You think I’m scared of you?
Clip: Tell us how to find the guy.
Clip: I know how to find the guy. He’s a ghost, man. He just fell off the grid.
Greg: Okay, here’s my question to you guys. What else would he hack with besides the laptop?
Isaac: He wills in, like, an elementary school card with a Dell.
Greg: I love it like a laptop or some some form of computer or a supercomputer. Maybe in 2007. That was the case. I have no idea.
Isaac: He should have emphasized that there was no hard wired to the laptop. It was a wireless laptop hack that would have been impressive.
Greg: It was using wireless fidelity, shortened to Wi-Fi. But Kevin Smith is a very outspoken guy. He’s a million podcasts. He actually has, like, live performances where he explains what he tells stories of from his career and he tells a really funny story of, Bruce Willis being really angry at the studio. They wanted to change something about the Die Hard movie that he didn’t want.
Greg: And so he basically, like, just wouldn’t go on camera until the studio went with what they wanted the movie to be. They basically, like, stopped making it. And then the head of the studio called Bruce Willis and Kevin Smith only heard Bruce Willis inside of the cell phone conversation, but he basically said, like, okay, yeah, let me ask you this.
Greg: Who’s your second choice for John McClane? Okay, great. So we’ll just do what I want to do. Okay, great. Bye. Quick.
Isaac: Well, the story is I’m really surprised I didn’t know any of that. But the only stories I know of, really, for an action figure, are the Tom cruise insistence on doing his own stunts. That’s like the only thing I’ve ever watched. Like the b roll on. And, you know, maybe there’s an equivalent there for, Bruce’s insistence, but it sounds like it’s all content and like the way they stuff the story, the narrative.
Isaac: I’ve never heard Tom cruise complain about the narrative at all. He’s always like, I want to be the one that flies the F-18. Bruce is the story guy.
Greg: Yeah, he’s big on the character. And he also says, the secret to his success is when you look at his face, there’s blood, dirt and shadows. That’s the secret to a Bruce Willis scene. Cool, I buy that, yeah.
Isaac: And like a flippancy. Like an ease to it, because I. There’s other blood dirt shadow guys out there, but they’re so tense. They’re always, like, trying to hold in a fart. And. And Bruce is just chill, man. He’s like, it’s all right. We might not make it out of this one, but we’re going to go down. Okay, here we go.
Isaac: I was like.
Greg: Okay, here we go. I think I wasn’t ready for John McClane to be as sad as he is in this movie. We hadn’t seen him for 12 years, but I think I wasn’t ready for him to be, like, as down and out as he was.
Isaac: You know? Who else wasn’t ready for him?
Greg: No.
Isaac: That’s what the story is really about. Middle age, sneaking up on you, man. You’ve been in the part of the movie.
Greg: What do you think of the 12 year jump, Joe?
Joe: I mean, I think that by this point, that character is just all the Bruce Willis movies are like every one that I can think of from that time frame. That is the melancholic kind of every man hero from The Sixth Sense to the work he did with Robert Rodriguez. What was it? What were those movies? Sin city?
Joe: Yeah. Sin city, yeah, to 16 blocks to you know, it is. But I’m going to come back. It is a great movie.
Greg: It’s so good. It’s so most stuff. Are you kidding me? It’s unbelievable. David Morse, David Morse classic. In that movie. Yeah.
Joe: Let’s stop. Let’s let’s do 16 blocks now.
Greg: Absolutely. Let’s do a hard time.
Isaac: See you guys later.
Greg: This was great.
Isaac: Oh, he was in red I loved red.
Greg: Yeah. Oh yeah red was red.
Isaac: Two was really good.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Isaac: Same vibe.
Joe: The both of those are on the list.
Greg: There’s this era that we talk a lot about Isaac in the late aughts. There’s this thing that happens where people found out, oh my gosh, we can do all these crazy things with computer generated effects. Okay? And just because they could, it’s just like Jurassic Park, just because they could, they never debated if they should. In Red is another one of those movies where, like, something impossible happens.
Greg: He’s stepping out of a car. Well, it’s flipping and he just, like, is super cool. And shooting somebody or whatever.
Isaac: Red is 2010. What was the Mission Impossible with? Was John Woo the director of one of those?
Greg: Yeah. Am I too?
Isaac: There was a ridiculousness about to. I remember I was like, I’m not going to walk out of the movie theater, but I could. I was rolling my eyes, so I was rolling my eyes as hard as they rolled.
Greg: Oh, that was it. When he, goes on his front tire on his motorcycle and flips around in.
Isaac: The sky 100%, I was like, okay. I felt like they thought I was stupid.
Joe: You don’t like motorcycle jousting is what I’m getting from them.
Greg: Yeah, you could have seen that from a mile away.
Isaac: That’s realistic. Motorcycle jousting. I’m down.
Greg: I’m.
Isaac: I’m down. The clown. The front wheel with, like, leather pants. Come on.
Greg: Is your first solo record going to be titled Down to Clown? No, Greg. Okay.
Isaac: I think it’s worth mentioning. The first time I self’s the masculine envy of Bruce Willis was Armageddon.
Greg: Oh, yeah.
Isaac: I’m looking. That was 98. Okay, so that was like. I mean, I was a junior in high school. I was ready to leap into my adulthood one year later and I was like, oh, that’s what a real man is. Got it happy. And he actually, interestingly enough, he had some hair in that one, just a touch.
Greg: Just a little bit on the sides.
Isaac: That was the beginning of, the Church of Bruce for me. And I’ve been a, devout follower ever since.
Greg: He has some really funny interviews after the fact. He famously, like, puts down movies after he’s been in them. Not like while he’s promoting them. But then the next movie, he’ll talk about how bad his previous movie was. He does that quite a bit, and he talks really negatively about Armageddon and how Michael Bay edited that movie and the thing that he really disliked.
Greg: This kind of goes back to his character standoff that he had with in this movie. He said. There were just some incredible scenes of people doing some real acting work in Armageddon that Michael Bay cut out and turned it into kind of like a quickly edited music video kind of movie, specifically between Bruce Willis and I think his dad, before their mission.
Greg: I mean, we’ve all been on that mission. It’s where you’re an oil driller and you have to go up onto an asteroid. This flying towards the Earth, and so you can drilling into it so he can drop a nuclear bomb into it and blow it twice. Earth happened to me twice. I mean, that was just 2010 for you.
Greg: That was,
Isaac: So it’s ten and 12. Yeah.
Greg: You needed a nap in between, let’s be honest. But before he goes on that mission in the movie, I think he goes to visit his dad and they cut that out. He really liked that scene. And then there’s another scene where he’s sitting with, Billy Bob Thornton, and he criticized Michael Bay for cutting a lot of Billy Bob Thornton is amazing acting out of that movie, which I thought was kind of a cool thing to fight for, you know?
Greg: But, you know, that’s how movies work. People get cut out of them.
Isaac: Does you guys like this element? I just remember that was the year before.
Greg: Yeah. Yeah, totally. We saw that together. We saw that in the theater. It was the one where he had bleach share. Yeah.
Isaac: So I think the first and last maybe.
Joe: No, he had bleached hair in the jacket. Obviously.
Isaac: I was hoping you would correct me. I was just like, they’ll get me if I missed it. That’s fine. Well, I remember the Fifth Element. That was the first time I remember now, like, I think my envy started in 97 when it came out, because he has this, kind of the Mel Gibson thing, but some muscle behind it.
Isaac: I didn’t feel no Gibson’s like strength until basically Braveheart. But right away I was like, oh, Bruce, Bruce Willis could kill you if you if you mess with his daughter, he’s not going to kill you if you don’t because he’s a just man.
Greg: Yeah, Australia has got nothing on Jersey.
Isaac: Nothing, nothing nothing. So yeah, I think whatever’s happening for me and magic in in Die Hard for it has way more to do with that moment in 1997 when I watched in the Chair than it does with the Die Hard can see. I’m learning a lot about myself tonight. Thank you.
Greg: Yeah, okay. So we’re here for. That’s right.
Joe: This is really actually a group therapy.
Isaac: Yeah, yeah. IMDb therapy.
Greg: Group. Yeah. Who wrote and directed something? And when did you become a man? Those are our two main questions. Yeah.
Greg: What? Yeah.
Joe: I really hope you go back and watch the first Die Hard. It’s worth it.
Isaac: Is that the with the Russian villain?
Greg: No. German.
Joe: German.
Greg: Hans Gruber.
Isaac: Yeah. Okay. That’s that’s in a minute.
Greg: Hans Gruber. We’ve talked a lot on this show. I think about how good Hans Gruber is. Maybe one of the best bad guys in movie history was top five. At least. Because he’s funny, he’s likable. You’re kind of rooting for him in Die Hard, bizarrely. Why? I mean, I’ll come to your house to watch it. Yeah. Okay. Okay.
Joe: In fact, we’re on our way right now. Yeah.
Greg: Yeah, a little preview window, a little creepy, but I’m down. My friend Kathy Jo, she has this imitation of Don Knotts. You guys know who Don Knotts is? So, yeah, her impression of Don Knotts is him being a stalker, and it’s. I’m outside your window.
Greg: CJ’s the best. Anyway, so Hans Gruber, the prototype of the best bad guy in Die Hard two, which is the second best Christmas movie? Isaac. William Sadler is good, but not as good as Hans Gruber by a long shot. And the third one.
Joe: We’ve got Jeremy Irons, who plays Hans Gruber, his brother.
Greg: Spoilers for Die Hard three. Yeah.
Isaac: I’m okay. Okay. I had 36 years to watch it. I think this is on me now.
Greg: So let’s talk about Timothy Olyphant in this movie. He’s the bad guy who plays Gabriel. They sold him to us a little bit.
Isaac: Dude’s a ghost.
Greg: Dude’s a ghost. He broke into the Joint Chiefs with the T-Mobile sidekick, only using the main hacker device. He hacks something. How do you guys feel about it all? I found this movie I like.
Joe: I’m a big fan of him.
Greg: To.
Joe: Begin with. I like him. I think he’s funny.
Greg: Yeah, he.
Joe: Gives surprisingly funny line reads throughout this movie. Every scene he saves that. Yeah. So I felt like a little bit I disagree with you a little bit on Bruce Willis. His lines. I feel like they’re a little contrived and like Telegraph the joke a little bit. It’s not as bad as Point Break, which is just probably my least favorite.
Greg: Keanu Reeves just still hating. I know he.
Joe: Still hate.
Greg: You can’t let it go.
Joe: I will never know. I’ll die on this hill.
Isaac: You probably can’t serve Kenny if you.
Joe: But I liked Timothy Olyphant. I think he’s really funny in this, and I like him. I’ve liked some of the stuff I watch, you know, I like the show justified. And, you know, I mean, he’s one of those, like, he’s up and coming at this point, but he never ruins anything he’s in and he usually makes it better.
Joe: It’s the way that I look at him.
Isaac: I don’t know, man. I struggle to see. And I think it was less to do with him and more to do with the screenwriting. He didn’t have a vendetta that I thought, like was his vendetta, that like, he was insulted that they didn’t they didn’t take his cautionary advice. Is that why he’s so pissed? Because he doesn’t have any nationalism issues.
Isaac: He doesn’t have any global issues. He doesn’t have any religious. He doesn’t have. I didn’t even sense in the ideological issues, all that I could pick up was that he was pissed that they, like, turned down his consultant advice, and now he’s going to destroy the world.
Greg: To show them that he’s right.
Isaac: Yeah, yeah, yeah. But was there more than that or did I miss that?
Joe: And he is going to like rob everyone blind. There’s always like there’s that piece and everything. There’s a.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: The real crime is like he’s going to steal all the money from everyone.
Isaac: If there were dials, villain dials, which I’m sure he has.
Greg: Which we should invent right now,
Isaac: We either needed more motive. Like she lost the daughter, his own daughter died and his like, or he needed to be more anarchist, which would have been more creepy unless, you know, J. Crew and I couldn’t figure out which lane he was in. Like, he he seemed ominous, but he didn’t have the seriousness. He wasn’t going to, like, murder people with his own hands necessary.
Isaac: I just didn’t get a lot of that unnerving. I don’t know, Scar and Lion King. I mean, you know, he could f you up big time.
Greg: Yeah. Wait, was that Jeremy Irons? Yes, sir. Yes. So you’re more of a die hard three guys. What I hear you.
Isaac: Say, I, like Jeremy Irons. Creeps me out. Yeah, I think I think I saw a rom com the other day I was there, I was like, I’m not, I can’t no, I’m not gonna watch that.
Greg: Yeah, he’s gonna kill the main lady. And he was the bad guy in The Beekeeper with Statham. So right back in his wheelhouse with that one.
Isaac: But, I mean, I thought he did a great job as the at the role, but they either needed to make him his. He was raised in the woods by an anarchist, and he tried to be good and the good guys shamed him or something. But yeah, I wasn’t. I wasn’t all about it.
Greg: I get the vibe like he’s a horrible person, very egotistical, but also like at the end wasn’t he saying, like, I’m doing this for us to show America that I was right and they’re vulnerable and this will they’ll improve the system if we tear it apart and show them how weak it is. I think that that seemed to be his goal.
Joe: I 100% agree with Isaac on the, they needed to amp it up, pick a lane. I just like Timothy. Yeah, I like Timothy Olyphant, but there isn’t a strong motive. I think he was just wanted to rob them blind, and he got mad that they didn’t hire him or take him seriously. So.
Greg: All right, we have thing on this show, the Isaac Slade bad guy dial. Yeah. Yes. I got to turn it up or turn it down.
Isaac: Well, what an opportunity that they missed because I mean, as, Well, however, there was when I saw this, it was the first time I really felt deeply unnerved in real life about a system, conceit that could bring us all down and have us growing potatoes in our backyard. And all they needed to do was add a little bit more something to his motive.
Isaac: And it would be plausible.
Greg: Obviously, almost nobody adds up to what Hans Gruber added up to in the first I heard, but I did like that in every single scene, Timothy Olyphant said something that made me laugh. Let me play a couple of these scenes here. Here’s, when in the beginning, when they send bad guys, one of whom looks exactly like Chris Martin from Coldplay, we should say that one of the henchmen in this movie.
Joe: Is basically Martin.
Greg: Parker. Chris Martin from Coldplay. You should start a band called Park Play. I think it’s when.
Isaac: It was Michael Stipe, but I like, so like.
Greg: Festive. So, they fail getting Justin long because Bruce Willis has saved Justin Long, and that guy talks to the bad guy. Here’s the phone call.
Clip: We had a problem in new Jersey. Farrell still alive. So we got away. Yeah, I did send five of you. Is that right? We maybe get Kendall. I’m sending the chopper. Just get airborne. We’ll track them down.
Greg: I did send five of you, didn’t I? I love that, here’s another one.
Clip: Someone set off the alarms. Yes. Thank you, detective, I can hear that. Find a way to turn it off.
Greg: Thank you. Detective, there’s probably one cut scene says good thinking. Lincoln. I feel like that’s right in line with, Thank you, detective, but, here’s where I especially liked Timothy Olyphant when he has sent one of his bad guys to save, Lucy McClane, John McClain’s daughter, out of an elevator. And they’re kind of having, like, a chat over, like, you know, FaceTime or whatever.
Greg: And he really, like, stares right in the camera and says this.
Clip: Well, that’s a great girl you got there. Can’t wait to meet her. What’s the matter, cat got your tongue? Come on, John, make a joke. Say something funny.
Greg: Unbelievable. I love that movie. Just like that.
Isaac: Scene stopped me in my tracks when I watched it the first time. I was like, that was the creepiest moment. I thought.
Greg: Pretty good. It’s funny that you mentioned Red, which was like classic PG 13 action movie with a lot of CG in it. They didn’t know this movie was going to be PG 13 until more than three months into production, because the first three Die Hard movies are rated.
Isaac: R, I didn’t know that.
Greg: And so they made this movie thinking it was just another rated R Die Hard movie for months. And so there’s a lot of editing going on to make it a PG 13 movie.
Isaac: Why did it become a PG 13? So let the marketing move.
Greg: I heard it was in response to how well James Bond movies were doing at PG 13, and they said, well, more people can see it if it’s PG 13. And this is the highest grossing Die Hard movie. Not surprised because it’s got that Isaac laid its seal of a seal of approval. Yeah. And the.
Joe: Bad guy dial.
Greg: Could have used a little bit more bad guy dial. But you know, they didn’t call, so no nuts.
Joe: What are the I’m I’m imagining the dials. There’s like the creepy index and then there’s like the motive and then what’s like, is there a three dials. Is it two dials?
Greg: I think we definitely need, the, I kind of agree with them in a weird way.
Isaac: Dial the relatability, translate for them. There’s also a dial of the lengths to which she will go to get what he wants, and a really high dial on that. You’re just deeply unnerved the whole time that he’s going to do something crazy and cut the guy’s head off or something. When the bad guy shows too much restraint and reasonability, you’re like, Aaron, you got to have a little Hannibal Lecter in there, just like he’s going to eat the brain.
Joe: Okay. Have you seen, extraction?
Isaac: No.
Joe: That’s one of the greatest action movies ever made.
Isaac: Extraction. Oh. Okay.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: We have to stop this. You have to watch that movie. Then we’re going to come back to this recording so that this point will be.
Greg: Being, give me the gist.
Joe: Well, I’m just imagining the first time we meet the bad guy. He literally throws a child off the roof of a building.
Greg: I go, and it’s almost like for a laugh. It’s a very weird moment.
Isaac: The villain nob of of what they’re capable of. I feel a lot more in books, I think, than movies, because, you know, you just get to know the psychology of the bad guy a lot more in a novel. Yeah. There’s a book called pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett, and there’s a character in there. You know, you kind of get to know him and he’s bad.
Isaac: And then that character has a son and the books spans like 90 years. So you see this generational trauma and the generational evil. And then by the time the sun comes around, you know what he has to prove? He’s got the motive. You know, he’s creepy as f. And then by the time it gets to the moment, you know that he’s in charge because his dad died, you’re just, like, dreading every scene that this guy is in because you know what he’s capable of, and you know how much he’s got to prove.
Isaac: And you know exactly the shape and size and weight of the chip on his shoulder. And then when he finally does something bad, not only is it hugely believable because, you know, you know why he’s doing it. You’re creeped out with everybody in the book because you’ve seen it coming and you wanted to grab the screen or the book and be like, run, everybody run.
Greg: This is William.
Isaac: The what’s his face? So that’s where I want. That’s where I want. And probably the guy in third one that you guys are talking about.
Greg: Hans Gruber. Yeah.
Joe: The guy in Die Hard one is much more likable than that.
Greg:
Joe: I think that’s the beauty of Alan Rickman as the actor, as he plays a bad guy with. And I don’t know if you’ve seen Prince of Thieves, but that’s also Alan Rickman. He’s a little bit more sinister. Snape right. Yeah. But there’s like a likability and a sinister ness to him. But you are kind of rooting for him because he is ridiculously charming.
Joe: And that movie.
Isaac: Well, spoiler alert to those who have not read Harry Potter, but that’s what he is. And in Harry Potter.
Greg: Yeah, you.
Isaac: Think he’s the bad guy, but you have this deep sense that he’s this beautiful soul that’s just kind of goth. And then, lo and behold, he can be trusted more than almost anyone.
Greg: He was in, Kevin Smith movie called dogma, which is that might be my favorite Kevin Smith movie. He actually, like, reached out to Kevin Smith and just said, hey, do you have anything going on that I could be? And he was like, what? Hans Gruber wants to be in my movie. And he’s like, yeah, I love silly movies, but nobody will cast me in silly movies.
Greg: Wow. So he, like, went out of his way to be in a Kevin Smith movie. I’m fine, I’m fine. I think I’ll send you a real famously.
Joe: Also one of the nicest people that’s. Yeah. Like at the all the kids on the Harry Potter movies talk about how kind he was to them. There’s even a moment in one of the first movies where he’s like being Snape, and I think it’s Daniel Radcliffe or one of them. Right? Like draws a picture of him, kind of like how you would draw your teacher and like, he takes it from him and, like, kept it because he loved the picture so much, was like him is like, you know, whatever.
Joe: Like Snape as like a donkey or something like that, you know, it’s like he kept it because he loved it, and he thought it was so funny that they did that.
Greg: So.
Isaac: Okay, I’m going to posit that maybe the deeper your your shadow side counters your character, the better you are to play it. So I’ve heard that about a couple different bad guys and and even gotten the impression it’s like outgoing, big extroverted stars that like as soon as the camera cuts, they’re like folded in on themselves. Introverted, shy.
Isaac: So maybe, maybe, the reason Timothy wasn’t a good enough bad guy because he’s too much of an ass in real life to be.
Joe: It’s very young. And that’s what this is if for getting into the shadow self here.
Isaac: So you said therapy. I’m just trying to.
Greg: Roll with it.
Joe: Yeah, I’m here for it, Greg. I’m sorry.
Greg: Hold on. There’s no way. There’s no way Timothy Olyphant is a jerk. Have you seen him on Seth Meyers? He is so funny on that show. He walked out one time, and he gets to the charity. He’s like, you know, it actually didn’t feel so good about the. Can we do that again? I.
Greg: So good. Yeah. Everybody I’m going to put this on it on the page for the show at Great Bad Movie Scum, the Timothy Olyphant. Hopefully there’s like a supercut of all of his. If there isn’t, I’m just gonna put all of his appearances on our web page because there’s so great. All of them are really good.
Isaac: Loki’s the same thing like that. That dude, he’s so nice in real life.
Greg: Yeah.
Isaac: Tom Hiddleston yes, yes. Dustin is a scene.
Greg: From Kong Skull Island.
Isaac: I don’t know that one.
Greg: Oh yeah, it’s a great bad movie. Okay, good.
Joe: I’ll have you back to do that.
Greg: Yeah, they’re actually I mean, they’re a few amazing texts from Isaac that may. I’ll pitch these movies to you after we’re done recording. Guys like you can let me know.
Isaac: My goal is to be, like, your 10th guest.
Greg: Okay.
Isaac: Who’s your other guest besides me? And who is your next?
Greg: Do you know who Scott Erickson is? The artist. Scott, listen. Yeah, he’s an old, old friend of mine.
Isaac: I like him.
Greg: And he did Jurassic Park, so he was like our, He was the George Carlin to our SNL, the first guest on our group and our SNL.
Isaac: That’s great. Are you ever going to do Indiana Jones three or is that too sacred?
Greg: Oh, yeah, of course.
Joe: That’s probably the best one.
Isaac: Is that a great, great movie?
Greg: Probably. We call balls and strikes when they happen, so we’ll see. But that is one of my favorite movies of all time.
Isaac: Bring it back in 2028 and I’ll do Indiana three with you.
Greg: Okay then give me a three year break. Here’s what I just heard you say.
Isaac: This is a lot.
Greg: I been a bit much. I’m not going to lie.
Joe: What is your take on why we’re talking about Indiana Jones? And then I’m. We’re derailed. We’re just in the weeds.
Greg: Yeah, but this.
Isaac: Is the point of Die Hard for. It’s not about the movie. It’s about where it takes.
Joe: That’s right. It’s it’s really the friends you make along the way. That is the true gift.
Greg: So to West Virginia actually,
Joe: So Indiana Jones famously in Raiders of the Lost Ark, he has no bearing on the outcome of that movie, except for actually helping the Germans find the Ark. But he doesn’t stop them. They open the Ark and it kills them. So it’s an action movie where the hero actually has no bearing on the outcome.
Isaac: Crazy. Wait, so why is he fighting so hard?
Joe: That’s a good question.
Isaac: Wait, why are any of us fighting so hard?
Greg: I don’t know, I’m making this up as I go. I don’t know.
Isaac: I’m making this up as I go. I got a mortgage, man.
Greg: Okay, okay, so we were talking about how there’s a there’s an PG 13 version of this movie, but there’s also an unrated version of this movie that’s like the rated R, like Die Hard. And for the most part, it’s just a lot more of Bruce Willis saying the F word. And then there’s a lot more like digital kind of blood splatter, like you see in movies these days.
Greg: That’s basically it. And kind of, you know, when people get shot, they kind of linger on them getting shot a little bit more. That’s mostly what it is. But there’s also some line differences, and sometimes I can’t tell if they picked the funniest version for the theatrical version. So I want to give you two different examples of this.
Isaac: Where did you find the R-rated one?
Greg: I own this movie, obviously, because I’m a gentleman, and so I have both versions in my house right now. Wow. And I googled, what are the differences and kind of went to different scenes. So thank you Google and thank you. You know, all five Die Hard movies that I bought one Christmas. All right. So in the scene that Kevin Smith wrote, he had different nicknames for himself that Bruce Willis said.
Greg: So here is the theatrical version of the Kevin Smith scene. And Bruce Willis calls him a nickname. Here it is.
Clip: Star Wars. Who is this man? He’s my dump truck. I’m not his a cop. How about that?
Greg: Oh, calls him dump truck in that version. Okay. And then here’s the unrated version.
Clip: Of you Star Wars kid. Who is this man?
Clip: He’s mine. Jenny Craig. I’m not as bad cop.
Greg: How about that? All right, so what do you think, dump truck or Jenny Craig on there? What’s the Jenny Craig wins, right?
Isaac: Yeah, but only only for 2005 to 2010.
Greg: Right?
Isaac: Dump truck is for the ages.
Greg: Yeah. Dump truck is timeless. That’s a good point. Thanks. Lynn Wiseman I.
Isaac: Remember dump truck. It was good.
Greg: All right, so when they leave Warlock’s house and seemingly, like, steal a warlock’s mom’s car to go back to wherever they’re, they’re like, we’ve got another 5.5 hours, you know? So let’s go do this.
Isaac: And the helicopter’s stuck in the fence, right?
Greg: Right after stuck in the fence. Bruce Willis is trying to leave. Justin Long catches up with him and ask him, what are you doing? Here’s the theatrical release. All right, hold up, hold on.
Clip: What are you doing? What are you gonna do? You think I’m gonna do it? I’m gonna go kill this guy and get my daughter. But she could be all right with me.
Greg: All right, so that’s the theatrical version. Here’s the unrated version. Hey. All right, hold up, hold up.
Clip: What are you doing? What are you gonna do? I’m gonna go kill his mother and get my daughter back. Or go get my daughter and kill this motherfucker. But she could be right.
Greg: Clearly funnier. Doesn’t matter what the order is. Maybe it’s funny because I put the hunk in there. I love the hunk. That’s good, that’s good. Oh, yeah. I think the unrated version wins in humor.
Joe: Agreed.
Greg: Yeah. But I’ll tell you where it doesn’t win. And that is at the end of the movie when he has been, when John McClane has been shot in the shoulder and Timothy Olyphant is holding a gun up to him, and then Bruce Willis puts the gun right in where he’s been shot, and then says the catchphrase in the unrated version, obviously, he says the whole catchphrase, you became a metaphor.
Greg: Yeah. And then shoots. But in the PG 13 movie, you only get 1 or 2 F words, and he’s already used whatever he was allowed to do. So here is that scene in the PG 13 version.
Clip: On your tombstone. It’s always in the wrong place at the wrong time. How about if because you’re on the.
Greg: And he shoots through the hole he’s already been shot in to kill the bad guy? Yeah, that is the greatest ending possible. And the way he, like, shoots on the f bomb is perfect in my mind.
Isaac: Mutes himself.
Greg: Mutes? Yeah, well, it’s just like, that’s exactly when it should happen. I feel like that is like when Joe and I live together as, like I told him, I have this theory that most people don’t actually know how to swear. Very well. Yeah, this is my running theory. Most people, when they’re swearing, it’s like. I mean, keep trying, but like, you’re not you’re never going to be, you know, a Beastie Boy.
Greg: And so when we were living together, Joe was like, challenge accepted. And so we paired that idea with how I have trouble waking up in the morning. And so Joe would come into my room and string together the longest sentence of swear words he possibly could to wake me up.
Joe: So awesome.
Greg: And he called it like swearing.
Isaac: Practice looks good.
Greg: And somewhere in the middle of this tirade, he had been practicing the whole shower that morning. I would start laughing because you can’t have your roommate Joe’s guy Tucker, walk into your room and start swearing at you in the morning and not have it be the funniest thing you’ve ever heard. And I dare you to fall back asleep after you’ve laughed really hard.
Greg: It’s impossible. So it was the perfect way to wake up in the morning.
Isaac: What a kindness.
Greg: Is. Seriously, seriously. Joe is one of the greatest. But this is perfect. I mean, if you don’t really know how to swear. And I think Bruce Willis, you know, being from Jersey, there’s a chance they are, you know, just culturally better swears than,
Isaac: It’s not a lot of nuns.
Joe: And it should also be noted that in Greg’s room in a frame was a picture of Bruce Willis from The Return of Bruno, his album, which was recorded, I believe, on the Motown label, and he was the highest paid artist ever that Motown had paid for that for that album. But it’s I like him in like a trenchcoat and like a fedora, if I remember correctly.
Greg: Isaac, you’ve got the music industry connections. You need to text somebody and find out if this fact is true. I heard somewhere that Bruce Willis signed one of the largest signing deals to Motown than anyone else in that history. In the history of that label.
Isaac: You said musician in the beginning of the intro, as was like as a gag. I thought you were joking.
Joe: Oh no.
Greg: Oh no.
Isaac: He’s a musician.
Greg: Yeah.
Isaac: Bruno, what is Bruno?
Greg: Bruno was like his alter ego when he was like a blues guy in New York and new in new Jersey. So what?
Joe: I like the harmonica, right? And saying.
Greg: Right. Harmonica? Yeah.
Isaac: Can you play something so I can hear it and we can.
Greg: Sure.
Joe: I mean, I just warn you, colors are going to seem brighter. Food’s going to taste better in your mouth now.
Greg: You know, the.
Joe: Song of birds when you walk out in the morning will be even more beautiful. So I’m just warning.
Isaac: I finally found I found my way. Yeah, it was on the podcast. It wasn’t because of the podcast. It’s because of, you know.
Joe: This is the dial. So this is on the villain dial. This is either going to push you to redemption or into mass murder. So.
Isaac: Maybe this is where I, I was not prepared to react publicly to this.
Greg: Oh.
Joe: Oh my God.
Greg: Am, I feel like you’re questioning some things right now. I was like.
Isaac: I thought I knew myself.
Greg: And did.
Isaac: You listen to him because you were a hardcore fan, or was it just like the kitsch of it?
Greg: It was the kitsch of it, for sure. Okay. Yeah.
Isaac: Did it ever get big? Did you ever.
Greg: So I think this record did all right. It did well enough that it’s out there on vinyl. And two of my friends have given it to me on vinyl, so I have two copies of it. Because my friends know me.
Isaac: I got the perfect gift for Greg.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, thanks to Tom merchandise, by the way, for one of those I’m forgetting who gave me the other one.
Isaac: Okay, I have a lot of questions. Maybe they just need to stay unanswered.
Greg: But no, now’s the time. Now’s the time. What do you need to know? I had this tape in my car. I had it on my dashboard as Joe and I drove around in high school.
Isaac: Was it a good idea for him to do that?
Greg: Yeah, 100%.
Isaac: Why was it a good idea for Michael Jordan to get into baseball? Really, is the question. Are you ever supposed to leave your lane? I ask because I’m thinking about leaving my lane.
Greg: I think what he was saying was, this is my lane music. That was his true self. And then he was a bartender in New York. And then acting started to take off in his 30s.
Isaac: Got it. So this is true soft stuff.
Greg: Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So when he would go on David Letterman to promote whatever movie, he was also in the band that whole time, and sometimes he wasn’t even a guest, and he would be in the band playing harmonica.
Isaac: Just because he was such a well-known movie star.
Greg: Did you mean such a well-known musician? Yeah.
Isaac: Well, I’ve had this other working theory that some of the best artists are ones that want to be in a different genre, and they’re stuck in the one they got popular in, and we see Johnny Depp trying to be Keith Richards. Nobody knows that’s what’s going on. We just see this phenomenon that’s happening. We find out later. We got to see a man trying to be somebody else in a different arena, and that is, you know, like, I don’t know Bono if Bono had won.
Isaac: But it’s like, if you found out all Bono wanted to do was be an actor, he’d be like, oh, okay, I get that makes sense. Yes. You know, so maybe that’s the maybe that’s the key. Bruce wanted to be on a stage with a microphone in his hand, and all he got was this $160 million. So he’s like, all right, I guess I’ll just do this.
Greg: Yeah. I mean, he basically there’s a whole podcast called Halewood, and it’s how he and Demi Moore moved to Hailey, Idaho and basically started buying the town and turning it into their town that was away from Hollywood. And all of their friends like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver, and big famous people would fly in and hang out in this town with them like he owned the bar.
Greg: He, he they started buying the town and like, he would just always be at the bar with his huge entourage, and they would be hopping on the stage and playing music and he was trying to just kind of make it seem like he was in Jersey, I guess, I don’t know.
Isaac: Okay, well, he has this, laissez faire thing that you can’t I don’t know, you can’t really fake. And maybe that’s maybe that’s part of his magic, I think.
Greg: Much like the bad guy dials, I kind of wish there was, like, a Bruce Willis sadness dial that we can turn up or down. Like I think he nailed sad Bruce Willis in that movie unbreakable. Did you guys ever see that movie? Yeah, it’s one of my favorite Bruce performances of all time. Sad. Bruce Willis is just unbelievable, really.
Greg: In this movie. He’s like sad and old. I don’t know, I feel like he’s a little bit confused on who John McClane would be in this moment.
Isaac: What’s his vibe on one, two, three? Because I would. I think his sadness was, flippancy guard because it could have been to like, oh, the guy’s trying to ruin the world. Oh, boy, here we go. Because, like, his sadness kind of grounded him in the in the Edgar Allen Poe at all. What was his vibe in one, two, three?
Greg: Well, what he brought in the first one was he’s a guy who desperately wants to get back together with his wife and show her that he loves her, but whenever he talks to where they just get in a fight and they get in this fight, and then she leaves the room and he, like, hits his head against the doorframe, like, what an idiot.
Greg: Like, why can’t I just be in a relationship and tell her that I love her in a way that she’ll understand? And so that’s who he is. He’s, like, tough on the outside and really wants to connect with people around him but doesn’t know how.
Isaac: And this one, you think he’s just like, cut off and depressed?
Joe: I mean, Greg and I are probably president and vice president of the Bruce Willis Fan Club from the 90s. I’ve just like loving every movie that he was in. But he was he would run the gamut from big action movies to small indie movies, and is a better actor than he’s given credit for. And then he just kind of slides into almost cliche of like, this is just what Bruce Willis is this character, some version of this maybe read as a and then I like, read.
Joe: I think it’s funnier than this.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: And I think what is missing for me in this movie is a little bit more of the humor, where the first three are funnier than this one is.
Isaac: Oh, that makes me excited to watch this. Well, I keep thinking of, Mel Gibson, The Lethal Weapon, because he was really funny and lighthearted, and any sadness he had was all just like, crazy. He just seemed like he had the if. If Bruce star was up now it’s crazy. But yeah, I’m curious to watch one, three, three.
Greg: Now there’s some story where Bruce Willis turned down Lethal Weapon or Mel Gibson turned down Die Hard. Like those roles were actually maybe reversed.
Isaac: Interesting.
Greg: Yeah, you can kind of see how they both are kind of getting at that a little bit. Joel Silver was the producer. Both those movies.
Isaac: Do you think that those two movies were cast correctly or was one? Should one have been the other?
Greg: I think the people in the movie, I mean, it’d be easier to watch Lethal Weapon now if, if Bruce Willis was in it because Mel Gibson has all that baggage now. Yeah.
Isaac: Because Bruce likes shoes.
Greg: If Bruce was in there with, like, Danny Glover.
Isaac: Yeah.
Greg: To be the. That would be the best movie of all time. Yeah.
Joe: I don’t know if Bruce can do the crazy that Mel Gibson, because I totally agree about like, the dial for Bruce Willis is sadness to like humor and Mel Gibson’s is like crazy. The humor.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And so I think they’re both perfectly cast. Like, I could see Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis both in those roles, and the movies are 30% worse because of it. Yeah.
Isaac: I thought Bruce Willis did crazy ones.
Greg: 12 monkeys.
Joe: He’s not crazy in that.
Greg: Oh, Brad Pitt’s the crazy one.
Isaac: Oh, no.
Greg: Okay, Bruce was kind of crazy. Well, he was like, kooky and Hudson Hawk. I was like his silly side. It was a little bit like the Three Stooges stuff that Mel Gibson did and Lethal Weapon.
Isaac: I know we have lots to talk about, but I just noticed, you know, Looper and Moonrise Kingdom were had some of my favorite Bruce moments. I thought that was in whatever this health said that he began to have. Man, he was on his game. Those were 2012.
Greg: I mean, you’ve got Wes Anderson and Ryan Johnson. I mean, two of our best writers and directors, you know, working with them. So I think they knew how to write for him, probably. And also, you noticed Bruce Willis work a lot with directors who weren’t the biggest directors later in his career, and it probably because he could kind of direct the directors if he needed to.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: Or his team could, you know, where they’re putting an earpiece in and.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: Feeding him his lines and that sort of stuff. So.
Isaac: Well, and then a year later, after Looper and Moonrise, he puts out A Good Day to Die Hard and the end and the beginning of the end.
Greg: But you know what? If you watch the Die Hard movie is backwards and you start with five, it’s not as bad because as we finish with it, you watch the Die Hard movie is backwards. They’re really good. Oh yeah.
Joe: That’s right. And it’s like Benjamin Button too, so yes.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. His friends called him Benny Butts over in Jersey. All right, let me tell you why. Shooting the gun on the swear word. I didn’t realize this until much, much later. The reason shooting the gun in the swear word was so incredible was because of the end of the movie. Jaws. Debatably the best 4th of July movie.
Greg: Here’s the end of jaws. He’s shooting at the shark. Are you son of a.
Greg: And then he has the greatest laugh after the shark blows up here. Oh. Spoilers for jaws. Yeah, my gosh, I just ruined just for everybody. So sorry. The shark dies at the end. I should have it’s. Yeah.
Isaac: You’re just doing your job. I’m just. Yeah.
Greg: But we were talking about how Bruce Willis could have been funnier in this movie. Bruce Willis, I think, was at once super entertained by Justin Long, who was like, Vince Vaughn improving in every scene of this movie. Was it really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He never said what was in the script. He was bringing something new. That was Kevin Smith said it was never not what was in the script.
Greg: He was always representing his line, but he was like bringing something new to it. And he said. He said something about Justin Long that reminded me of what how Alec Baldwin talks about acting about it. It’s almost like a boxing match and you’re just trying to win. And Kevin Smith said, Justin Long wins every scene he’s in because he’s making everything up as it goes and surprising everyone the whole time.
Greg: Even though each line mirrors what he’s, the emotion he’s supposed to do or the plot point that he’s supposed to advance in that moment. But there’s there’s that scene where, Justin Long runs up to Bruce Willis after he’s had a couple of CGI close calls with the cars, and this is after Bruce Willis has sent his car up into a helicopter and blown up a helicopter with his car somehow.
Isaac: Classic. Willis.
Greg: It’s the second time Bruce Willis, like, takes care of a helicopter with something. With a car like he does the fire hydrant. Yeah. Anyways, so here’s Justin Long. He runs up to Bruce Willis and in the unrated. I think this is just the unrated version. Bruce Willis says something pretty funny. And then Justin Long says something funny back to him.
Greg: Let’s listen to the scene. Three lucky shot I like it. So she’s got the helicopter in the car.
Clip: Hundreds of thousands of people get killed by cars over here. It’s just like four.
Greg: Oh, and then I do to the end. Bruce Willis says, how are you? And he’s like, oh, my asthma is kind of acting up. I think I need my inhaler. And it’s it looks to me like Bruce Willis is actually just laughing at him. He’s actually just enjoying himself. I feel like Bruce Willis and Justin Long were probably having a fairly good time, even though Bruce Willis apparently when they were filming the Kevin Smith scene, he was rolling his eyes like, can we please just do the script?
Greg: Why do we have to always do something different? Can we please just do the script? I think it was because Justin Long was winning the scenes.
Isaac: I wrote down. He said,
Greg: Justin said, do you see that.
Isaac: Willis? Because you kidding me, I did that. Oh, oh.
Greg: Did you see that? I did, I, lots of good moments in this movie. What would you guys think of Justin Long in this movie? What did you think? Probably from the perspective of, like, al in the first movie, the guy who lived in the basement of the airport of the second movie, and then obviously Zeus, Samuel Jackson in the third movie.
Greg: And now Justin Long is kind of the comic relief. What’d you guys think of Justin Long?
Joe: He kind of annoyed me throughout this movie. Honestly. But I’m not a big Justin Long fan either.
Greg: He wins too much in the.
Joe: Sense he’s like third place behind Samuel L Jackson, which is the awesome, the best sidekick.
Greg: Right? Zeus.
Joe: And then the first one, you can’t get any better than al. And so I think what I struggled with with his character and even just throughout this movie was just, you know, the 2007 casual sexism that just is pervasive throughout. And, yeah, and his character plays into that, especially in the beginning.
Greg: Yeah. Oh, by noticing her voice. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which was a plot point. But yeah a bummer of a plot point. Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. And so that I get it. But it was. Yeah. He just kind of annoyed me as a character.
Greg: Yeah. Okay. What do you think Isaac I.
Isaac: Was coming in with two points already on the scoreboard. My girlfriend knows him and raves about him and said is the coolest guy and the best thing. And so down to earth. And somehow he got, you know, a zillion dollars and just feels like an everyday Joe. And then I’m Mac versus PC guy. That’s basically all I ever knew him in.
Isaac: Other than this and that. Like, he converted me to Mac, so I had two points going. So I had a low bar. I was like, this guy’s probably great. And I thought he was really funny. And he brought the comic relief of that era, which is kind of like the fumbling but earnest and yet modern against the older people.
Isaac: I feel like I couldn’t quote it, but I feel like that would happen 3 or 4 other times. Or the old timers like, oh, you kids! And then the old timer does the cool thing that the young person could never do because they’ve gone to too much therapy or something.
Joe: Yeah, Bruce Willis is analog. In a digital world like that is the conceit of this whole thing. And Justin Long represents the digital world. So that’s. Yeah, that was my deep. Maybe I’d had an edible when I thought of that watching.
Greg: That’s my story.
Isaac: Well, they need each other too. I mean that’s kind of the beautiful of that. Can see that they t absolutely cannot figure out how to use the phone. So Justin Long has to fix it for him. And then, you know, and Justin couldn’t do anything with that.
Greg: Bruce. It’s funny. The more I think about it, the more I like kind of their pairing and what they each represent. Like Justin Long is friends with Vince Vaughn and I feel like he’s just channeling Vince Vaughn’s energy in this movie. You know, have fun at the Bad Timing Awards or whatever it is that he says, you know, can I get you anything, coffee or warrants when he shows up?
Greg: You know, he’s just taking him like he has all kinds of stuff like that. Which in 2007 was, you know, that’s all we were doing in movies. Yeah, yeah.
Isaac: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Greg: A different joke. You know, for every scene.
Isaac: Default.
Joe: I feel like the script let them both down and I think and I think the first and the third have better writing than this. The first one, especially.
Greg: The first one especially.
Joe: Yeah. But if they had a tighter script, a little bit more free for, I don’t know, Bruce Willis was a big into ad libs. But you know, you know, being able to keep up with Justin Long like it felt mismatched at times and you know, the script was like, let’s get to the next scene, let’s get to the next scene.
Joe: Let’s get to the next action scene.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And that to me got old in this where the those moments are fun, but those moments are too fleeting for me, where I wish there was more of them.
Greg: One problem I have with this movie is at some point they just lose me on why they’re doing anything, and why we’re driving to West Virginia, and why we need to go to that one power plant like they explain it to you, but it’s like, what? What if you’re wrong? Yeah. And they just happened to be right every time.
Greg: It’s it’s totally just accidental detective work. Yeah, but in the in that center stretch when it’s kind of like, what? What’s the motivation here? What are we doing? They do have some kind of, like, quiet conversations, which it’s. It’ll be no surprise to anybody. I really appreciate it. You know, when they get in the car and they’re driving around together and they’re kind of exposing who they are to each other.
Isaac: Can you play that thing the Nobody’s a Hero scene? Do you have.
Greg: That? Totally, totally.
Isaac: This was the shift that I actually appreciated, where, you know, in that time, even there was a kind of watershed moment happening. Obama was just about to come in. I felt like the definition of masculinity was on trial. It was it was happening before our very eyes and Willis and, you know, maybe, I don’t know, Mel Gibson, Tom cruise, and then Brad Pitt, you know, all those guys were were starting to wear thin a little bit like, oh, Brad Pitt abused his kid.
Isaac: Oh, Tom cruise is a nut job. Oh, like our Johnny Depp’s a hot mess. Like, there was this strange shift happening, and Justin obviously represented the younger generation. And. And if Bruce’s generation was known for anything, it was sort of this stoicism and this, like, quit whining, just do the job. And this moment, it probably landed that a six out of ten for me emotionally.
Isaac: But I could tell, like when somebody says something funny enough that, you know, it’s funny, but you don’t laugh. That’s how this felt drama was. It was like, yeah, that’s right. Oh, didn’t quite get it. But I know what you’re trying to say.
Greg: Let’s listen to it. They’re in the car driving and they’re talking about being a hero.
Clip: That’s pretty good back there, kid fights to know who else to complain about. Now, just what I mean. It’s not funny. I’m not like you. I can’t I can’t do this shit. I mean, what’s that mean? Like, what about, like, like heroic or everything? I’m brave. I’m not that guy, okay? You saved my life, like, ten.
Isaac: Times in the last six hours.
Clip: Just doing my job, that’s all.
Clip: You know what you get for being a hero? Nothing gets shot at you. A little pat on the back, blah, blah, blah. I had a boy.
Clip: In the forest, a wife can’t remember your last name. Kids don’t want to talk to you. You do a lot of meals by yourself. Just kid. Nobody wants to be that guy. Why are you doing this? Because there’s nobody else to do it right now. That’s why. Believe me, there was somebody else to do it. I would let them do it, but there’s not.
Clip: So we’re doing it.
Clip: That’s what makes you a good.
Greg: I love that scene. I think that scene is really great. Yeah, I’m totally on board until he says, because there’s no one else to do it. It’s like there’s an entire, like, super smart, super talented, high tech government. Cliff Curtis is killing it. As you know, the guy running this thing. And like, I love Cliff Curtis, I love this.
Greg: Shut up. And Hobbs and Shaw you know he was great. And avatar two remember that.
Joe: I sure don’t.
Greg: But that’s okay okay okay. Yeah. So when he says nobody else is going to do it, it’s like, no, there’s like tons of just make a phone call, talk to somebody. Yeah. Okay. Well, Joe, it occurs to me that there might be some people listening to this who have not seen Die Hard 4.0, aka Live Free or Die Hard.
Greg: And so why don’t we pretend you’re walking through the aisles of Blockbuster Video, you’re reading the back of Blu ray and DVD box is trying to figure out which movie is the right movie for your crew that night. That’s right. It’s time for the back of the box.
Joe: It’s the back of the box when a powerful group of hackers take over the United States infrastructure, only John McClane can save the day from the streets of DC to the rural backroads of West Virginia, the action jumps off the screen. John McClane must protect a computer prodigy and save his daughter, all while the bad guys wreak havoc and cause mayhem.
Joe: Can John McClane save the day and the country one more time, or has his luck run out?
Greg: Oh, ominous. Yeah, I like that. They’re always ominous. Yeah. So, Joe, that was like the marketing back in the box. But let’s get honest here. Let’s get to the real Joe sketch. Go back to the past. This is my favorite kind, by the way. When it’s a movie that you don’t really like because you do not hide it.
Greg: Let’s get to the real Joe guy. Tucker back in the box.
Joe: So, die hard for Die Hard and a 4th of July. Die hard on a computer. Die hard on the eastern seaboard. The connection to what made Die Hard the a paradigm shifting, genre creating franchise seems to be gone or tenuous at best. There’s some nice action scenes noting for those that love Die Hard like me, they are all cloistered and confined like the original.
Joe: When the action scenes sprawl out, the CGI green screen effects make this movie feel dated. Die hard for will be forgiven and mostly forgotten behind the first three, and that feels appropriate.
Greg: Yeah, I can see how you think that I am more generous towards this movie, but I definitely made it so my real back in the box would have a bit more like. A little bit more of a shrug emoji. But also I enjoyed it so much this time. All right. We lost Isaac for a minute, but he’ll be back for the drinking games for a minute.
Greg: Joe, should we get to box office and critical reception for Die Hard four?
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: Okay, now, this movie came out in the summer of 2007. This movie had a budget of $110 million, and it is the highest grossing Die Hard movie in history. And worldwide, it made $388 million.
Joe: That is crazy to me that I made that much money.
Greg: People were ready, and this is one of those rare cases where we actually have some home video information as well. Estimated domestic DVD sales according to the numbers.com $102 million.
Joe: Wow. So this movie did really well.
Greg: Really well. And you know what? A lot of these great bad movies from like the 90s and the OTS, we should just assume that the home video was unbelievable because people were still going to video stores and renting them there. Right. And we have to assume that digitally these movies are doing pretty well now. I can’t wait until we can get those numbers as well.
Joe: I really do feel like in the theater, because the CGI in the theater is a much different experience, and CGI, I like when I watch it on my computer or even on my, you know, TV.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: And so knowing that it did so well, I mean, I can I get it, it would be a much different experience to watch this than some of the the explosions and the action scenes. Yeah. Would feel a lot better than they do now. Watch where you can see it and go, oh, okay, that was all CGI. Whereas in a theater you kind of the graphics are so much better.
Joe: It just takes away.
Greg: I watch this in the theater in my house and it was awesome. The 4K transfer that they have now really good. But I will say that the lighting in this movie, the cinematographer, it’s a little bit of an old school kind of lighting scenario, almost like have you ever, you know, had the, Steven Soderbergh took Raiders of the Lost Ark and put it in black and white to show just the lighting and the lens work.
Greg: It was lit like an old school cereal from like the 40s and 50s. And this movie, I bet, would have a similar thing, where the shadows are so shadowy and the lights are so light. I think this would look really good in black and white, and I think we should probably put out a black and white cut of this and rerelease in the theaters.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Agreed.
Greg: It’s like a Godzilla minus one scenario. All right, Joe, on Rotten Tomatoes, what do you think the tomato rating is for this? What do you think critics think of this movie?
Joe: I feel like a 70.
Greg: Yeah, because it’s like, really good. But then also there are things that you wish were better. This is about a 70. I think you’re right. Yeah.
Joe: I’m going to stick with 70 actually isn’t what I think it is.
Greg: Critics were pretty excited about this one. An 82.
Joe: Wow. Okay.
Greg: Yeah, yeah. There’s 250,000 audience score ratings in here. What do you think the popcorn meter is on this movie?
Joe: I’ll go 85.
Greg: Ooh, close 86. Okay. All right, so let’s hear what some of the critics said back then about this movie. We’ll start with Seattle Times, our hometown paper, The Seattle Times. Ted Fry said ultimately, Live Free or Die Hard so completely slacks our jaw and so successfully suspends our disbelief that the highest praise goes to the crew of first class technicians who pulled it off three out of four stars,
Greg: Wow. And I’m not going to lie, I gathered these after I watched it in my theater and I was like, totally. This crew did some amazing work.
Joe: Yeah.
Greg: Mike LaSalle of the San Francisco Chronicle says this time the hype is real. The latest Die Hard film, the first in a dozen years, is the best in the series. Wow. An invigorating return to the style of blockbuster that dominated summers back in the early 1990s. Time magazine says it is a movie born to be forgotten, says this you actually sent this earlier.
Greg: It is a movie born to be forgotten, except as something that, against your better judgment, you had a pretty good time watching back in the summer of oh seven.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, that’s the.
Greg: Best one so far. The Hollywood Reporter said stunt work is among the best ever committed to film. There is something very satisfying in this digital age about an action film where CGI doesn’t overwhelm. Actors, are in great physical shape, and huge spaces are actual sets.
Joe: Interesting.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: I had such a different experience of this.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joe: I think I liked it better the first time I watched it, and I realize it now.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: 2 or 3 times. And I’m trying to think of what coloring that.
Greg: How good point break was.
Joe: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. How much I love that movie.
Greg: And the accountant.
Joe: I think some of it is colored by what we’ve learned about Bruce Willis.
Greg: And.
Joe: His decline. Yeah, yeah. Unfortunately, I have seen Die Hard one and two much more recently than this, and it’s pretty hard for me to put that anywhere but us compared to even the third one, which I haven’t seen in a while.
Greg: But okay. The Washington Post says at a time when the action genre has come to be dominated by sleek matte services and sediment, forget them. Computerized effects Live Free or Die Hard seeks to remind viewers of the simple, nostalgic pleasures of watching stuff get blown up.
Joe: I don’t agree with that.
Greg: On the negative side, Time Out magazine says the rookie mistakes are legion. The Detroit Free Press says if this is living free, you might consider pulling the plug.
Greg: All right. And the last one I really like this one. Joe Morgenstern from the Wall Street Journal says terrific entertainment and startlingly shrewd in the bargain, a combination of minimalist performances, interestingly minimalist and maximalist stunts that make you laugh as you gape at their thunderous extravagance.
Joe: I agree with that. There are some. This is a movie I maybe it’s around when this started, but the best action scenes are in the middle of this movie. And at the beginning to me.
Greg: Yep, yep.
Joe: And although the last scenes where they’re he’s driving the truck and the.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Plane is shooting out that bike.
Greg: It kind of jumps the shark at that moment. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Joe: But I think I really love the scene. I guess it’s in West Virginia, that action scene with Maggie Q and and the parkour person. I think that’s where that one is. Chris Martin. Yeah. Chris Martin parkour. Yeah. To the east. And then there’s another one when he gets just in long out of his apartment. That’s a really fun scene.
Joe: So there are some really great action sequences in this that are, you know, to me, worth the price of admission easily.
Greg: I love that, he had the Radiohead fitter, happier, more productive poster on his wall and that’s he that’s kind of cool, but also just Paramore out of nowhere because on the screen there’s so much I mean, you know, like when he shoots that fire extinguisher in the hallway and the guy kind of blows backwards through the window.
Greg: I mean, that’s that’s really a guy blowing backwards through a window, you know?
Joe: Spoiler alert for a new trope alert when a fire extinguisher explodes.
Greg: Pretty amazing. There he is.
Isaac: My laptop.
Greg: Is.
Isaac: Plugged in and just decided to.
Greg: I know you can’t trust these laptops. Should have stayed with the PC. Honestly, Justin Long leads you.
Isaac: Wrong Justin Love.
Joe: And I mean you also could have probably hacked into the entire Nora ad command with that laptop, but that was so long ago.
Greg: You know, so long ago. All right, Joe, is it time to get some drinking games?
Joe: Oh, absolutely.
Greg: All right, let’s do it.
Joe: All right, so this is our stop drinking games. Doesn’t have to be alcohol. Can be water, coffee, juice, soda. Whatever is your poison. It could be a mocktail. We don’t judge as much as we. Wow. We judge, but that’s okay. All right. First one, silent helicopter or low flying helicopter or a plane in this case. Oh, you have so many.
Joe: You’re basically drunk. And that’s if you’re if you have this drinking game. So my best case scenario.
Greg: Yeah. How can you look this smoothie in the eye and say it’s not perfect, Joe. Yeah. Unbelievable.
Joe: I mean, there isn’t a surprise helicopter like that’s the only thing that’s missing.
Greg: It’s almost surprised them like the you hear it for a second. They look up and there it is. Yeah. How did they not hear it for the seven miles? It was headed their way.
Isaac: They were busy.
Greg: Super busy. Yeah.
Joe: We have a push in an enhance. There’s a lot of computer, all kinds of stuff on this. Yeah. We do not have one. Two people share a slow motion look in the middle of chaos or an explosion with silent suffering and ringing in the ears. Missed opportunity because there’s enough explosions for that.
Greg: What about when they hop in that van and they get in the power station.
Joe: And it blows them back through a wall?
Greg: We’ve all been there. Yeah.
Isaac: There was no ringing. He was just like, shake it off.
Greg: Yeah. Missed opportunity.
Joe: Yeah. Opening credit scene. Does a title lock into place for the sound? Absolutely.
Greg: Yeah. It’s in the score. Let’s hear it.
Greg: The opening credits. This movie, by the way, are batting about 500. Yeah, they they are like, c plus. And they could have been so good. They should have set up everything in the tension and then like, gosh, it should have gone to live here, die hard. And then we go to, to Matt Farrell’s apartment.
Joe: I don’t think we have a flashback to dialog in this, but I could be wrong on that one. So bad CGI all over the place in my opinion. Right. Bad shots are everywhere in this movie. I mean there cannot be a gun shootout without about a thousand rounds of ammunition being expelled.
Greg: Isaac a great bad shot is when someone’s shooting a machine gun right at you and they’re somehow missing, and you’re able to, like, outrun someone. There are great bad shots coming from a jet in this movie. It takes out an entire truck and does not take out Bruce Willis.
Isaac: Somehow, that’s the magic of Bruce.
Joe: I mean, the classic is like it goes right past your ear. So I was like almost. Yeah. So close.
Greg: 100% amazing.
Joe: We have inexplicably wet streets. And in West Virginia, which is awesome, I love that.
Isaac: Are these drinking game categories you already have established?
Greg: Yes. Yeah. These are for every movie. Yeah.
Joe: These are a stock. Wow.
Isaac: You guys have taken this nerd thing to a whole different level than I anticipated.
Greg: No. Well, this is just how we live our lives.
Isaac: Yeah, I can tell. No, I can tell. It goes all the way down.
Greg: A helicopter out of nowhere is a lifelong drinking game that I play with myself. And it doesn’t have to be beer.
Isaac: You’ve texted me about that one.
Greg: Yeah. And then I film it, and I said, turn it into a meme, and I send it to all my friends. Yeah, I say it just happens. The life is magical again.
Joe: We. Yeah. So we have inexplicably wet streets. We do not have a give us the room. But I have added a caveat to that, which is when somebody takes over. So there’s a scene where Timothy Olyphant takes over for his. So he’s like, move, get out of the way. I’m going to do it myself.
Greg: Give me the computer. Oh, yeah.
Joe: We do not have Interpol or a cell phone smash that I noticed. And this. And those are our stock drinking games.
Greg: What’s Interpol just to mention of it? Yeah.
Isaac: Any reference?
Greg: Does it have Interpol?
Joe: If you have seen Mission Impossible seven, every single stock drinking game is hit within the first hour of that movie.
Greg: It’s glorious.
Isaac: It’s unbelievable. How many how many drinking games is that? 12.
Greg: It grows. It grows often.
Joe: There are 11.
Greg: Such as the count. 11. Okay. Yeah.
Joe: 11 stock drinking games.
Isaac: I’m seeing a Milton Bradley,
Greg: Opportunity here. So these games are meant for when you hang out with friends, you assign a different drinking game to each person in the room. Then when that thing happens, everyone says, oh, Isaac.
Isaac: That person has.
Greg: There was a helicopter out of nowhere. You have to take a drink. So that’s the game. You assign the drinking games before the movie starts, and then, you know, you’re kind of like making your friends, and it doesn’t have to be beer. But I did this with some friends of ours, Isaac for the Lord of the rings, Phil and Danny, and we all assigned each other different drinking games, and it was the most fun in history, so that’s brilliant.
Greg: There’s a crew in Portland that does this and plays the great bad movie Drinking Games as a friend group.
Isaac: I want to see you guys get that going. And I would buy that forever. So now.
Joe: Greg, do you have a do you want to kick us off with one of your drinking games?
Greg: Absolutely. Any time John McClane does something with his car that beats a helicopter, I take a drink. How about you, Joe?
Joe: I have every time. And this is in a lot of, like, computer movies. Like, they’re typing and like, it’s making a sound on the screen. Yes, them take a drink. And the beginning of this movie is all over the place.
Greg: Which is a thing that computers don’t do. We should just say that. Yeah.
Joe: Exactly. You’ve probably take your computer in to get checked. If it was making a sound every time you type something.
Greg: How many meetings do they have for what the keyboard sound should be in this movie? Because people are basically just furiously typing and staring at their screen this entire film.
Joe: And then they’re like, when things come up on the screen. It was awesome.
Greg: It’s so awesome. All right, my next week’s game is any time they say the words fire sale. Oh, take a drink.
Joe: I have every time they say the word load. Jack.
Greg: Take it. Oh that’s good.
Isaac: Nice though. Jack. When did they say that?
Joe: They say it like 2 or 3 times because he goes to his daughter’s dorm.
Greg: Oh, yeah.
Joe: The whole point is like, oh, we LoJack your car, which is such a 2007 term.
Greg: Yeah.
Isaac: Super. Oh 2008.
Greg: Any time they go way out of their way to show us their big crazy truck in this movie, this movie cuts to that truck so many times.
Joe: So many times.
Greg: They are really celebrating that track all the way through the movie.
Isaac: You can tell a large amount of that budget went to that truck.
Greg: Yes. Totally.
Isaac: Try. I get their money’s worth out of it.
Joe: That’s right, I and I lied. There is a cell phone smash in this movie, so.
Greg: How dare you? How dare you?
Joe: At any time they they drive as fast as a helicopter. They could.
Greg: Well, we’re talking about helicopters. Did you guys notice how many needlessly hard turns that helicopter took while it was flying?
Isaac: I felt it, I was like turning while I was watching TV.
Joe: I have every time John McClane reloads his gun, take a drink, because he seems to have an unlimited amount of clips on him at all times.
Isaac: But I respected that because it was like it was pretty accurate. He was hitting nine and then refilling and hitting nine. Reset.
Greg: Oh wow.
Joe: But also, did he have like 300 clips on?
Greg: No.
Isaac: My brain was like okay, point for accuracy, point deducted for inaccuracy. We’re at even zero was right. Okay.
Greg: No no no, it’s that’s why he was so tired. The whole time. Those things are heavy. Yeah.
Joe: It’s like a weighted vest. He’s just burning twice as many calories as everyone else.
Greg: Everything is like, what’s going on? I’m only 52. What is happening?
Isaac: Right? That’s why he’s so sorry. The whole movie is carrying 400 clips.
Greg: Yeah, probably not the 400 clips. All right, my next drinking game. Every time somebody says Woodlawn, which is where the servers are. That Gabriel. Yeah, is robbing.
Isaac: I noticed that.
Greg: Every.
Joe: Time the cameras are moving, like they’re making an homage to Martin Scorsese. You take a drink.
Greg: Wow. Who makes that call? We always have to. Like, who’s making that call for you? The person to your right, to your left.
Joe: And if they have to, the casino. Otherwise.
Greg: Otherwise they have to leave the party. Yeah.
Isaac: That one’s only friendly for like, alcoholics because you’re going I’m going to do it just in case. Yeah.
Greg: But they could be drinking like coconut water. It’s all good. They’re just gonna be super hydrated at the end. Yeah. Okay. All right. Every time somebody says Bowman in this movie, which is Cliff Curtis is, there’s a phone call where John McClane and Bowman are on the phone, and all they’re doing is running and yelling. Bowman. McClane. Bowman.
Greg: McClane. Okay, look out! Phone Bowman. You see this? Bowman. Okay. Bowman.
Isaac: Trying to figure out of Congress that exploded.
Greg: Yes, exactly.
Joe: That’s awesome. This is a one where you finish your drink because it only happens once. This is just a callback to the first movie. There’s an Agent Johnson and the FBI. Yes.
Greg: Take address.
Isaac: What was that? That was a reference to the first one.
Greg: To the first one? Yeah.
Joe: There’s. There are two FBI agents in the first one. And, you know, one is black and one is white, and they go where agent Johnson, agent Johnson, no relation. That’s the big joke that they have. Yeah, that was totally.
Greg: That’s good. I’m out of drinking games. What are your last ones?
Joe: I have anytime they drive through a wall, take a drink. Anytime. There’s an explosion on impact from a car flying into, like, a helicopter or anything. They could drink anytime. There’s a flip phone. Take a drink.
Greg: Inglorious. Yeah.
Joe: And anytime they say hacker, take a drink.
Greg: Oh that’s amazing.
Joe: I went drink water. I have that wouldn’t be water.
Isaac: Let’s go boys, I gotta jump. I gotta go put those babies to bed.
Greg: All right. I was like, thank you so much for taking the time. Good luck with your shows.
Isaac: Thank you so much. Good luck with your opening set for my shows.
Greg: Thank you. Thank you man, you’re recording some things you don’t want to say more, but some things are coming.
Isaac: Yes. Yeah, I’m recording a little EP with some cover songs as an almost my, so my favorite artists and songs, and I’ll put that out in here. It’s almost done.
Greg: Awesome.
Joe: Thanks so much for joining us.
Isaac: Thanks for having me. I appreciate it, Greg. It’s good to see you, man.
Greg: It’s great to see you. I’ll see you in three years. I’m the next, great band movie set you’re on.
Isaac: I’m going to sell series. Remind me in 2028 to watch the movie again.
Greg: Just give it a tight three and then. Right, and then you’ll be back.
Isaac: I’ll get my drinking games ready.
Greg: Okay. Perfect. All right. We’ll see you later.
Isaac: Thanks so much, guys.
Greg: All right, so now that Isaac’s gone, why we move on to Joe’s trope lightning round, aka signs. You might be watching a great bad movie.
Joe: Awesome. So new trope alert fire extinguisher explosions, which we have seen now in back to back movies.
Greg: Yes.
Joe: Or a fire extinguisher is used to great effect.
Greg: Yeah, I.
Joe: Think we can just have anything in a, like a container like that that explodes like jaws. The end of jaws totally utilizes that. That could be the the one of the beginnings of that trope. You have the honorable man trope and kind of a reluctant hero trope as well. I kind of gave a charismatic antagonist, you know, I liked, Timothy Olyphant, a lot of explosions on impact, conversations in the middle of a car chase.
Joe: No women except for love interests. Or while the daughter, in this case amazing recovery Time by Bruce Willis gets beat up a lot in this movie. So medical care from a partner or a love interest or vet’s office, and those are our main tropes. We didn’t have a lot of tropes, which is surprising considering this movie and when it was made.
Greg: Totally. I think Len Wiseman, you know, Len Wiseman, the director, he was actually picked by Bruce Willis. He had seen the underworld movies and called him. I also think that, you know, Len Wiseman would do anything Bruce Willis needed him to. Yeah, there’s probably an aspect to that. Yeah. Do you remember when Bruce Willis, after he’s gotten Justin Long out of his place in he, he radios in for the police chief or whatever.
Greg: It’s chief. I think it’s Wiseman, and that’s Len Wiseman making fun of how everybody mispronounces his name. I think it’s him. On the radio. Awesome. Okay, we have to like hard pause here. Okay. Because I really wanted to talk about Mary Elizabeth Winstead and Maggie Q in this movie. Mary Elizabeth Winstead is incredible. She’s like 21 years old and she’s playing Lucy McClane.
Greg: And I mean, there could not be a better actor to play Lucy McClane than her in this movie. She’s unbelievable, a great. And I feel like we can see her in the beginning. We see her at the end. We needed her all the way through, almost to the point where, like, maybe Justin Long didn’t need to be in the movie and she should have been in the car.
Joe: Yeah, agreed. Yeah, I’m a big fan of her, and I was trying to way when we get to like, how can this be fixed? I was trying to bring in Kate the movie that she’s in that’s like,
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Her version of the John Wick, action style.
Greg: Woody Harrelson.
Joe: Yeah. Woody Harrelson it’s a fun movie. A movie will for sure get to on this podcast.
Greg: 100%. Yeah, I totally yeah.
Joe: So I liked her and I really like Maggie Q in this as well. I feel like they both could have been given a little bit more to do.
Greg: Yeah.
Joe: Yeah. But yeah, I totally loved seeing her in this, and I have forgotten that she had been in it and have been a while since I’d seen it. She’s amazing and the I think it’s the third season of Fargo. I don’t know if you’ve watched that show.
Greg: No.
Joe: She is so good in that. Yeah, yeah, I feel like she steals every scene that she’s in. Yeah. And then Maggie Q just kind of kick ass in this. And I enjoyed watching her and I feel like she deserved a better final fight scene. I feel like you said, you know, somehow survived her scene. And I’m come back at the end, as they like to do in these things.
Joe: And maybe she’s flying the plane or, you know, anyway. Right. She deserved a better death. That’s what I’m saying.
Greg: She’s super tough and she’s super in control and she’s dating the bad guy. So they have the awkward bad guy kiss that we got from like cliffhanger or we got from diehard with a vengeance. Yeah, there’s a similar thing there, but otherwise I feel like we could have had a much bigger part. But I mean, her role in this is, you know, she’s she’s a hench woman, you know?
Greg: Exactly. But yeah, I guess Kate Beckinsale wasn’t available who when Wiseman was married to at the time. Yeah. So I mean, as I was watching this, I was like, oh my gosh, this could have been the movie. It could have been like she and Timothy Olyphant could have been all the bad people in this movie. That could have been just the two of them.
Greg: Yeah, they’re so great. I think they were able to kind of like punch above their weight a little bit in the casting of this movie, because it was a Die hard movie in the first in a decade. Yeah. Everybody in this movie is actually pretty great. Some king just killing it, killing it.
Joe: I was so happy that I forgot he was in this. I was so happy to see.
Greg: Yeah, yeah.
Joe: So it’s a better acted movie than it deserves, I think. Yeah. As, as the best way to put it.
Greg: Let’s talk about the second unit director and stunt coordinator for a second, because we didn’t get to that. Well, Isaac was here. We have actually talked about the second unit director on this show before. A guy named Brian Smurfs was the second unit director, and he was a stuntman turned director, but he also did second unit work on Mission Impossible two for John.
Greg: Well, he did Iron Man three with Shane Black, which we haven’t gotten to, but we will. And he was the second unit director on a movie called Face Off.
Joe: Oh, interesting.
Greg: Which we covered. You should go back and listen to that episode as well.
Joe: One of the greatest Nicholas Cage movies ever made.
Greg: Absolutely. And, the stunt coordinator we haven’t had the chance to talk about yet. His name is Brad Martin. He’s just kind of known for his work with Len Wiseman on the underworld films. So and I think he won some awards for his work on this one. The stunt work this last time through, I was really floored by it.
Greg: I didn’t catch it. Yeah, I think maybe we’ve just watched enough great bad movies now where I have, I forgot how many times it really felt like somebody was flying through the air or like things were really happening. It’s pretty creative stuff in here. And even when it’s just most of it’s completely ridiculous, it’s like, well, at least I haven’t seen it before.
Greg: That David Leach kind of, it’s just have you seen it before or not?
Joe: Yeah. I think my one note would have been for this. There are a few too many scenes with the great bad shots where they just like, seven people with machine guns are shooting at Bruce Willis, and he’s, like, hiding behind the refrigerator. That’s going to save his life. Then they have really great stunts on top of that.
Greg: But like.
Joe: We didn’t need all of the countless bullets, right? We want this. We want the stunts. That’s what I want. Yeah. Anyway, so I.
Greg: We didn’t get to talk about CGI close calls as much as I would have liked. There was the the one where the car flips and then lands on the two cars and they magically aren’t hit, and then within a minute that truck just kind of turns towards them and they slide behind the pillar and the truck hits the the pillar.
Greg: Yeah, but they’re in front of this is like classic, classic, mid to late OTS, CGI close calls.
Joe: Yeah. And there’s a scene where at the end where Maggie Q right when and her kind of big final scene is like hit by the truck that Bruce Willis is driving or the van and then magically is holding on to the yeah, the hood while he’s driving through walls, which don’t affect her at all. So like.
Greg: It’s like she’s related to Vin Diesel. Really?
Joe: Exactly. Yeah, yeah. So those were the CGI close calls that really bothered me the most for the ones you mentioned. And then that one was like, come on.
Greg: He’s driving through an office and they end up in an elevator shaft. Yeah.
Joe: And somehow she’s still hanging on and is totally fine, but.
Greg: Right. And that scene is pretty good. But why are we suddenly in an elevator shaft? Yeah, I understand why we why we were at the power plant. But I also totally don’t understand why they went to the power plant. And, that’s a main bad aspect of this movie for me. Yeah. All right, Joe, I feel like we’ve been, like, avoiding the elephant in the room.
Greg: Do you think it’s time for us to get to some important questions?
Joe: Absolutely.
Greg: All right, let’s do it. All right, Joe, first important questions did live free or die hard? Hold up. Then in 2007.
Joe: I think it held up better than I thought. Absolutely.
Greg: And so then follow up question. Does it hold up now to me?
Joe: Not as much.
Greg: Okay.
Joe: But the drop off is not as steep. It’s probably more steep for me. But in conversation with you and Isaac, sounds like maybe I should be a little bit more forgiving for this movie.
Greg: I was hesitant in 2007, and I’m less hesitant now. So what does that mean? Does that mean just the nostalgia of when we still had, you know, passable Die Hard movies? We didn’t know what we had?
Joe: I guess. So, yeah.
Greg: My heart wasn’t broken yet, but I heard five. Yeah.
Joe: I still haven’t seen Die Hard five. And I don’t know that I can because I’m worried.
Greg: I think you should come to my house.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: I think we should watch this together, loud and in 4K at my house and just revel in how bad it is, okay? Because it actually is kind of a fun watch if you just know that the bars and. Yeah.
Joe: Well, I yeah, I don’t know that the bar can be any lower. So I’ll probably love this movie.
Greg: I think it has like a 13% on Rotten Tomatoes. Okay. Yeah. It’s one of those. Okay. All right Joe, how hard do they sell the good guy in this movie?
Joe: They don’t really have to. It’s John McClane.
Greg: Yeah, you know, I don’t have to.
Joe: We have three movies before this. That’s how the good guy.
Greg: Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. How how do they sell the bad guy?
Joe: Oh, Kevin Smith does all the heavy lifting on this for us, so. Yeah. Yeah. It’s awesome I love that.
Greg: Pretty good, pretty good. Joe. This I love weeks like this where I can ask you this question. Why is there romance in this movie.
Joe: There’s no romance at all in this movie. Maybe Justin Long and Lucy McClane.
Greg: Oh, yeah. Yeah, maybe a little sweet. Yeah.
Joe: But you know, we know that that’s not going to last very long. If we watch the speed movies. We know that relationships built under that kind of pressure are never going to last. So, you know. Oh, romance.
Greg: Oh, yeah. She’ll be with Jason Patrick by the next movie for sure. Just like speed to. All right, next important question. Are we bad people for loving this movie? Wait, am I a bad person for loving this movie? Yes. Yes, obviously. Does this movie deserve a sequel? Joe? Deserve no.
Joe: But we’re going to get one. Apparently one of the worst movies ever made.
Greg: Yep, yep. And they were already writing that movie before this movie came out. Is a studio is was on board? Yeah. Does this movie deserve a prequel?
Joe: We have three prequels. We don’t need another prequel.
Greg: So I’m going to hard disagree on that. Okay, because there were 12 years between Die Hard With a Vengeance and Live Free or Die Hard. And so I think I honestly think we could have had a prequel before each Die Hard movie, to be honest.
Joe: I’m in for more Die hard.
Greg: Always more Die Hard. I think we should have seen the fallout with Holly. In a prequel to this movie. Okay, post Die Hard with a vengeance. We could have had a quiet drama. Of John McClane. And it seems like in one of the car scenes he’s kind of saying he hasn’t had this kind of action in his life for quite a while.
Greg: And so I think we’ve got a quiet movie of him just kind of being on the beat and his kids growing up and moving on. I think Lucy is the younger daughter. Jack is the older son. So I think there’s a family drama in there of that kind of patches things up, because this was a pretty big jump.
Greg: I thought, I think we should have seen a movie in the house with all four. McClain’s to be honest, could have been just called the McClain’s. Yeah. Or meet the McClain’s, like Meet the Millers or we’re the Millers.
Joe: Yeah, we’re the Millers. Or it could be like, prestige TV, where it’s, a theory is in between. So.
Greg: Totally, totally. Okay, Joe, very important follow up question. Sure. Die hard for been nominated for best picture at the Oscars in 2008.
Joe: What was it up against?
Greg: Okay, thank you for asking. They had five movies. They weren’t up to ten. Yeah. So no country for old men.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Atonement. Okay. Which I’ve never seen. Not my kind of movie, but I read up on it. I kind of want to watch it. Juno.
Joe: Okay, I hated Juno.
Greg: So you hated Juno. Okay. Michael Clayton.
Joe: Okay.
Greg: Best movie of all time. And there will be blood.
Joe: Wow.
Greg: Strong year. Yeah.
Joe: That’s it. There will be blood. Wins.
Greg: No country for the country.
Joe: No country has a great movie. I have not. I can’t make any case for this over any of those. Those. That’s a strong year.
Greg: So you like Juno more than this movie?
Joe: No, I did not actually I would I would put this in place of Juno and in a heartbeat.
Greg: So so would I. And I would also add five more movies. Can we do that right.
Joe: Yes, absolutely. I would because be good at it.
Greg: Check out 2007 The Bourne Ultimatum.
Joe: Oh okay. Zodiac oh all right, I’m interested.
Greg: Hot fuzz. Oh, yes. Okay. Superbad. Wow. And Ratatouille, that is 2000.
Joe: And seven coming in hot.
Greg: That’s my ten. All right, I dropped Juno and I add all those.
Joe: Okay I’m in.
Greg: And I had for I support that. All right Joe next important question. How can this movie be fixed aka who should be in the remake?
Joe: I want to restart the Die Hard franchise.
Greg: Agreed.
Joe: Kind of how they do James Bond new James Bond a new John McClane okay okay. David Leech comes in to direct. Sure. And it’s die hard. Colon Hobbs and Shaw Colon so fast, so furious. So we’re just merging all of these.
Greg: Wow.
Joe: So we have Cliff Curtis, we have Han and we have Die Hard. Let’s just bring the universes together and go to meet the new Die hard reverse.
Greg: Okay, I like it.
Joe: How are you going to fix this?
Greg: This movie? That’s how you remake all of Die Hard movies or just Die Hard for.
Joe: This is how we restart the franchise of Da High. Die hard.
Greg: Okay, okay okay. Yeah, I agree, I think we should. It’s time for us to remake all of the diehard movies. You’re gonna hate what I say next. Awesome. But I say Justin Long as the new John McClane, because before Bruce Willis was John McClane, he was just the silly guy. Yeah. And I think Justin Long is a fantastic actor that has not taken that turn as far as I can tell.
Greg: But I haven’t seen I didn’t see like barbarian. I haven’t seen some of I don’t know if he was serious in that movie or not. Okay. So he works out a little bit. He shed some of the Vince fun and it’s him. He’s the guy. Okay, so we remake this movie eventually after we’ve made the first three.
Greg: So you know we’ve got a few years until he’s 52. Although Justin Long is going to look 12 and he’s 52. It’s so weird how old Bruce Willis looks in this movie. I know his young sidekick will now be his incredibly douchey son, Jack McClane, played by a digitally de-aged Tom cruise.
Joe: I’m in, I’m in.
Greg: So the Matt Ferrell hacker, which originally it was thought that we should make that his son that was the first idea for this movie. We replay that idea. His daughter should also, be in the movie and she’s going to be played by Jenna Ortega. Obviously. That’s an obvious take. Yeah. Who is Jack’s little sister but is still somehow a foot taller than Tom cruise.
Joe: And if you seen Jenna Ortega, you know that she’s actually probably shorter than Tom cruise in real life. Well, we’ll make it work.
Greg: He just needs to wear his shoes. Yeah, she’s going to be taller. Okay, so in this remake, I think the government is full of bureaucrats who are compromised by their egos, so they aren’t really helping. I feel like that was. Yeah, the problem with this movie, the bureaucrats were helpful and not kind of somebody that John McClane was working against.
Greg: So that was sort of broken in this movie. So John McClane needs to work via his CB radio with Warlock. Okay. Just like the radio with al, the CB is now with Warlock, and when everything goes bad, he has to call Zeus from the prior remake. Zeus was also in the third. You know, remake that they’ve already done, but he is still Zeus is still played by Samuel Jackson.
Greg: The new reboot. Yeah. Warlock is, Kumail Nanjiani.
Joe: Oh my god, no, no.
Greg: That’s greenlit and a surprisingly emotional performance. I don’t know why of Camille is really giving us, like, his big sick energy. And he’s funny, but he’s also very emotional. He’s like the new owl. Yeah.
Joe: I love it.
Greg: All right, so that’s I agree. We reboot the whole series and this is the that’s my pitch for the fourth and the reboot of the whole series. All right Joe, very important question. This one is very tough. What album is Live Free or Die Hard?
Joe: I really struggled with this and I think we have used this album before. I’m going under the criteria of a band that became influenced by some of the technology, and where the genre was going of the time, so we have a little bit too much of a of a reliance on CGI. And this movie just kind of this is where movies were.
Greg:
Joe: So I have this is U2’s pop.
Greg: Oh, wow.
Joe: You know, they kind of went leaned into what was happening with the dance movement in their mid 90s, and they had just done like three of the greatest albums that may have ever been made with Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby.
Greg: And one of my.
Joe: War, maybe.
Greg: Unforgettable Fire would have been the three before that. Yeah, unless you don’t count right enough. Yeah, yeah.
Joe: So you have like a band that just like peaks.
Greg:
Joe: And then kind of is following the trends and it doesn’t really land. There’s some good songs on there. I like that album when it came out, but I have not listened to it in 25 years, you know.
Greg: So Zero Fossil came out before that.
Joe: Yeah, zero. But to me it feels like B-sides from Achtung Baby. I kind of give it a pass.
Greg: Yeah, but.
Joe: Pop was such a left or right turn. Yeah. From what I felt like their sound was.
Greg: You know why that’s a perfect choice for this? Because they were recording pop and getting ready for the pop mart tour, which was their big follow up to the Zoo tour, and they had the tour booked and, and planned and they weren’t done with the record yet, so they had to finish the record so they could then go on the tour for the record.
Greg: And so the record was like more like an idea that they rushed through and then went on tour. And I mean, their own review of that record is when they released each song as a single, they actually rerecorded it and brought the energy that they were bringing in their live shows to the single, which is nobody’s ever done that, as far as I know, it’s such a good idea, but it also shows like they weren’t very happy with what they ended up with in the studio, and this movie was very much rushed to get into theaters after they finished, had almost no post-production.
Greg: So that might explain some of that CGI failure that you’re seeing in their. Wow, good choice. Really good choice. I like that one quite a bit.
Joe: What’s your what’s your album? I’m very curious.
Greg: Well, so I liked this movie. Pop is my least favorite U2 record, and that’s coming from somebody who has spent a lot of his life listening to U2 records.
Joe: Cutting to the seven hour.
Greg: U2 every.
Joe: Single song, and the perfect order that you have done.
Greg: Oh really? Right. My best of U2. That’s 83 songs long. Yeah. It what is it? It’s like 74 songs that lead up to, like, a song from War. That’s how I describe it. It peaks it like a song. It’s so awesome. I went for a fourth album that also marked the end of what made that thing incredible, and this might be a little bit controversial, but I think this is the fourth album by The Police and nothing about the police lately, for some reason.
Greg: Ghosts in the machine, it was the last record that they made. That’s like The Police as a band. The next album was synchronicity, which was basically staying on his way out to a solo career.
Joe: Right.
Greg: And, and so this is the last one that feels like a true police record. And I don’t know if you’ve listened to police records. They’re all so weird. So it has like some of your favorite songs you’ve ever heard in your life, and then it has like seven songs you’ve never heard and are just the weirdest songs you’ve ever heard.
Greg: Or way more reggae than you’re comfortable with, right? But this album has what I think is my favorite police song. Every little thing she does imagine. So for fans was this was the last band album before sting fully took over the Police and the Die Hard franchise. The fourth one is the last. Yeah, thing you could close say is a Die Hard movie that that we’re going to allow into the canon.
Greg: And if you want to listen to the other songs that we’ve forgotten, we’ve signed the movies, go to our.
Joe: Go to our Spotify and go.
Greg: To our almost complete Spotify playlists. Great bad movies music. All right, Joe, it has come down to the time for us to rate this movie. Great bad movie, good bad movie. Okay, bad movie, bad bad movie or awful bad movie. I think I know where you’re going with this one, but how do you rate Live Free or Die Hard?
Joe: I could be probably have my arm twisted into a good, bad movie, but to me this is an okay bad movie.
Greg: Yeah, yeah, that’s the vibe I’ve been getting on that.
Joe: I think it depends on when I watched it, but I came up with too many, too high of an expectation for this movie. Yeah. You know. Yep. And it’s probably better than that. But because it’s in the die hard world, I can’t I can’t go above that. But where do you land on this movie?
Greg: Well, as I was saying, I enjoyed this movie more this time than I ever have. And so I think I’ve properly lowered the bar in my heart for where this movie is. So I actually have like surprisingly great bad movie. All right. I really enjoyed myself watching this one this time, so. All right, Joe, we did it. Yeah, he did.
Joe: It. We had the conversation that needed to be had, what, more than 15 years later. So if you haven’t seen this movie, spoilers for diehard for our Live Free or Die Hard. Sure, I disagree with Isaac. I think Die Hard 4.0 would have been a good title for this movie.
Greg: They were really trying to lean into like the technological side of it.
Joe: I get that although Live Free or Die Hard, I mean, it’s I mean, it’s a die hard. I don’t I’m not going to I mean, we have die hard, die harder, die hard with a vengeance and live or die hard, I guess. All right. I’m back with Isaac, I think die Hard 4.0 would have been bad. I think Live Free or Die Hard is better.
Greg: So. Okay. All right. Okay.
Joe: I talked myself back into it.
Greg: So what state is live free or die.
Joe: From New Hampshire, I think.
Greg: And so why is that something that makes sense for this? This movie takes place in DC, West Virginia. So the question is the 4th of July.
Joe: I don’t think we should I don’t think you should pull up that thread. I think that’s far too much thought.
Greg: I thought Die Hard 4.0 was stupid until this week. And I was like, you know what, I don’t know, there’s something about I like it. Yeah, I like it. This week, my whole mind has changed about that. Yeah. For this week, for some reason I watched it again for the first time. Listener, if you’ve enjoyed the show and there’s maybe like a movie you think we should cover, you can reach out to us.
Greg: You can go to our website, Great Bad movies.com. You can find us on Instagram. Great Bad movies show. We’re on YouTube, great bad movies show. You can comment there. You can reach out to us by emailing Great Bad Movies show at gmail.com. If you support this show, the number one thing you can do is, rate and review it.
Greg: Wherever you’re listening to it, follow us on whatever app you’re listening to us on. If you listen to us on our website or someplace else, find us on your podcast app and, follow the show and invite a friend over. Reconnect with a friend the way Joe and I are reconnecting and, watch some great bad movies.
Greg: That’s right.
Joe: Or reconnect with 100 friends. You know, we all need more friends.
Greg: So don’t draw the line at one.
Joe: Exactly.
Greg: Invite multiple friends like we did on this episode.
Joe: Shout out, to Greg and Isaac who are going to be killing it on September 5th and sixth. Or you’re just there the fifth.
Greg: I’m there. The fifth. Yeah.
Joe: So Greg is going to brave the world of stand up comedy for the first time ever doing. Yeah, much longer set than probably anyone ever would suggest as your first set out. But hey, you know, live free or die hard as my word is our motto here.
Greg: So yeah, if you don’t plan, you go long and then you get paid more. So I’m assuming with that.
Joe: Yes, exactly. You’re paid by the minute, right?
Greg: So I’m really only going to do like 10 or 15 minutes.
Joe: It’s going to be awesome.
Greg: Yeah. It’s going to be super fun. I can’t wait to do it I can’t wait. It’s going to be so awesome. And it’s gonna be a good show. Isaac starting a solo career. It’s really exciting stuff. I’m really excited about it. Oh my gosh, Joe, I just looked at the time. Listen, this has been great, but, I’ve got to go kill a helicopter with the car real quick.
Greg: Oh, that’s that’s really strange.
Joe: I’m trying to jump a car into a helicopter. So let’s be careful. I guess that’s what I’m saying.
Greg: Okay, so I hope we don’t hit each other exactly. Okay, well, that works for me, because I’m going to go type forever on my keyboard and stare at my screen like it means something.
Joe: Okay, good. Good. Yeah. I’m running late for a meeting in West Virginia. Oh, wait. No, no, that was a very short drive. I’m actually early for this meeting now, so it’s all good.
Greg: Okay, well, while you’re doing that, I live next door to this guy, the warlock. And his mom’s car was stolen a while ago by some guys who also ruined his fence with a helicopter. So I’m going to go see if I can find that car.
Joe: Oh, that’s. That’s weird. I’m taking my first lesson to drive a big rig. I sure hope someone doesn’t shoehorn a jet fighter into the plot of this movie for for no reason at all. So.
Greg: Seriously? Seriously, I’m looking at the how much they’re heating the the server cars at this place called Woodlawn, and it’s it’s a concerning amount. So I think I’m gonna go check that. All right.
Joe: That’s that’s probably good. I’m going to try to get OnStar to start my car for some reason. I’m not quite sure. But anyway, I think they can do it.
Greg: That makes sense. That makes sense. Well, while you’re doing that, I’m going to go help my friend Maggie. Q has been only slightly hurt and yelling from the bottom of an elevator shaft since 2007.
Joe: Oh that’s good. Yeah, yeah, they should check on that. I’m going to go spy on my daughter. It’ll be fine. I’ll just show up at her dorm at 2 a.m.. That way we can just work the term low jacked into this movie. That’s really the only reason. Oh, and, she’ll somehow be in an elevator an hour or so later.
Joe: Don’t question it. Also, the bad guys can create technology, I guess.
Greg: Fine, fine. That makes sense. That makes sense. I have been in a helicopter. I’m sure you can tell. Unless Andre’s canceling is amazing. I’ve been in a helicopter this whole time, and I have grown very ill by this sudden right and left turns that it seems to be making for no reason. So I’m going to go take care of my stomach.
Joe: Yeah, you better do that. Hey, remember when Justin Long was famous for that? So that’s crazy,
Greg: Justin Long has a great podcast, by the way, called Life is Short. Awesome. He and his brother on it. And you know what? They seem like pretty good guys. Okay.
Joe: All right. Shots fired at Justin long all night. Sorry. Nothing personal.
Greg: And this is really weird, but, all of the power just went out. I don’t know how we’re still recording. Yeah, just like in this movie. And to make up for a mistake that they made in this movie, I’m going to go get shots of the power going out at Nakatomi Plaza, Lucy and Jack’s childhood home, that shop front from the opening of Die Hard.
Greg: That right before it explodes. Samuel Jackson store all the places from the previous movies where they should have shown the power going out. I’m going to go film that right now.
Joe: Perfect. I’m out of things that have the power go out in front of them.
Greg: Okay, well, that works for me. So, Joe, I will see you soon. Awesome.
Joe: I’ll see you soon.