#223. 'Die Hard'
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This Christmas episode is a full-throated love letter to Die Hard (1988), with Sonny, JVL, and Mike unanimous that it's about as close to a perfect movie as exists. Sonny leads the review praising the gallery of vividly sketched villains — Hans Gruber's suit-and-Arafat's-tailor menace, the Swedish goons, the guy who eats the chocolate bar — arguing the film lets audiences root for skilled criminality itself, and marveling that Bruce Willis (fresh off Moonlighting) and Alan Rickman (in his first film role) both arrive fully formed as movie stars. JVL calls it "a perfect piece of watchwork" where every Chekhov's gun pays off (the no-shoes setup, the Rolex jubilee bracelet that kills Hans, Al Powell's redemption arc, the "Agent Johnson / Special Agent Johnson... no relation" gag) and likens the film's confluence of first-timers — Willis, Rickman, director John McTiernan, DP Jan de Bont — to a sports dynasty built by drafting hidden greatness all at once; Mike closes with his own running list of small favorite touches, from the dusk color palette to Reginald VelJohnson's extra beat outside the 7-Eleven. Before any of that, the guys spend the episode's front third on holiday banter: JVL and Mike compare notes on their kids watching Home Alone for the first time as part of a Christmas double feature, there's a long tangent on Amazon Prime Video's "dad core" programming (Reacher, Jack Ryan, The Boys) as the "dark matter" of streaming, Sonny rips into the Wonka box office and Warner Bros.' decision to hide that it's a musical (with a detour on West Side Story's flop), and the Catholics in the room war-game the least miserable Mass schedule for a Christmas-falls-on-Monday year. JVL ends the episode on a melancholy note, saying this was his first rewatch of Die Hard since Alan Rickman died and Bruce Willis could no longer act — a small reminder of the film's age even though, as Mike agrees, it otherwise plays completely timeless.
From the show notes
good movie tbh
Full transcript
Guest00:00:00Mister mystery guest are you still there yeah I'm still here unless you want to open the front door for me I'm afraid not but you have me at a loss you know my name but who are you just another American who saw too many movies as a child another orphan of a bankrupt culture who thinks he's John Wayne Rambo Marshall Dillon there's always kind of partial to Roy Rogers actually I really like those sequins shirts do you really think you have a chance against us Mr. Cowboy yippee-ki-yay motherfucker
Mike00:00:41welcome to the Sub-Beacon podcast I'm your co-host Mike Warren I'm joined as always by my two co-hosts who would rather be sitting on a beach earning 20% Jonathan V. Last and Sonny Bunch join us over at SubBeacon.com thank you join us over at SubBeacon.com there's more by the way where you can become a patron hear a new episode every Friday morning join the conversation in the comments it's always lively in there in short be a part of the growing Sub-Beacon community you can even get every once in a while those little mini bonus episodes we got some bonus we got some bonus news there might be one coming in the near future but you can only find out if you're a patron and you can only do that by signing up at SubBeacon.com so tell your friends and family SubBeacon.com we'll be talking about Die Hard later in the show but first Merry Christmas guys and what?
JVL00:01:56is going on JVL Merry Christmas to you Michael and Sonny and all of our all of our friends who are listening I'll tell you this we did a double feature of Home Alone and Die Hard two of the all-time Christmas classics in our house not everybody stayed for both halves the double feature the second half was restricted to those who are over the age of 13. But it was really something and I had not seen Home Alone since I mean I couldn't tell you when I last saw Home Alone maybe when it first came out on DVD and it was revelatory in a way and also I you know so my memory of it was that the movie was 90% house battle hijinks and that really is only the very end and the more charming parts of it are Kieran Culkin being a man Macaulay Culkin sorry being like the man of the house and going food shopping and stuff like that those are more charming that's right but I mean it's very much a John Hughes movie yeah yeah which I had sort of forgotten I mean I knew was a John Hughes movie but I'd forgotten how much it is a John Hughes movie well it
Sonny00:03:26also owes a lot it owes a lot to planes trains and automobiles another you know very because you have the whole candy trying to get back yeah to to the house John candy which is great with John candy which is anyway and uh no I just I
JVL00:03:41you know the the thing which turned me off of it though we can talk about this the family itself is so distasteful and unpleasant that those first 15 minutes I just painful like I do not want to spend any of that time with any of those children or any of the adults certainly not the uncle and the aunt like they're
Mike00:04:06all bad people you're such a disease who talks like so okay so my theory on this by the way is that that whole first 15 minutes you have to you have to view it as through Kevin's eyes everything is so much not real we're getting the hyper real correct yeah because because they are so awful but they're awful in the ways that are actually unrealistic and and everything is worse and magnified because of because he's the baby and he can't do anything I mean buzz is awful I think yeah like he is as he is probably as awful as he's depicted at the movie but I think it's sort of there I've always been bothered by in the moment where he realizes he's by himself and he's going back through the things that the people have said earlier in the movie that were mean to him but there's one buzz says I'm going to feed you to buy tarantula which he doesn't say we didn't say that always bothered me oh that's so and I don't know I don't know the significance of it other than like it just tell it suggested to me that it's all it's a little bit in
JVL00:05:31his head well narratively the reason to do it is so that when Culkin says I wish they'd all go away or whatever whatever he says you have to be sympathetic for him and not think that he's being a brat yeah yeah I would say narratively you need you need
Sonny00:05:51to really sell you really need to sell like the family he wants to be away from the family so he is happy when they disappear because otherwise it's a traumatizing experience for a little kid to be left alone like you don't you don't like you wouldn't want that to happen as a kid or to your kid just to be to be to be left alone uh in a you know in a in a all by yourself on Christmas you have he has to want that to happen and for him to want it to happen we we
Mike00:06:18have to see everybody being really mean to him and awful yes so can I so it's so funny because JVL your kids watched this movie for the first time and my kids watched it for not not the baby but everybody everybody else the other two watched it for the first time you know the same week or the next night or something and so I was interested in how they reacted to it how were your boys one thing my they loved it um they were cracking up at all the parts that were that kids should be cracking up at um they loved the the the sort of the misdirected with the angels with filthy souls stuff yes like like that was very they they that tickled their sort of intellectual funny bone if I you know like you know it was like they could see this sort of and and uh you know appreciate the the farce of it and so um they loved that of course they loved all the slapstick and the looney tune stuff at the end um couple things I was a little surprised that reaction to that first 15 minutes was um was that Kevin was in the wrong or like Kevin was being
JVL00:07:33kind of a brat oh your oldest thought that the youngest was being bratty exactly no there was
Mike00:07:38it kind of came through it was like oh okay I see I see um so I thought that was funny my reaction because this was on I think I've said in an earlier show this was on repeat in my house growing up on VHS what I really appreciated particularly on this viewing was how tight the writing is um and honestly I could say the same thing for for a diehard but like every sort of explanation is is made for why why everything happens right the phones are out because the tree line and and they and they do a very quick bit of establishing that the phones the electricity is going to be back up the phones are going to be out for days that's why they can't reach them uh at first um and uh you know the thing with the kid from across the street getting getting counted you know and and and all of that like it's just they they do such a good job of establishing the realism of how you know how
JVL00:08:40this would actually happen so I love it I was I was struck also this is the last thing I'll say how physically unattractive every single person in that movie is like it's just a bunch of very ugly faces all of the kids Joe Pesci the parents the uncle the aunt how dare you say that about John Heard uh that's a handsome man I these are these are I don't think movies get made like that anymore we are we cast beautiful people in everything and this is just fascinating wow it really was
Sonny00:09:20it was like seeing something from a different time because I I just I mean I disagree I'm more or less with Mike here I think that they are I wouldn't say it's not like having Sydney Sweeney and Glenn Powell on the screen together you know as as they are currently doing in anyone but you or whatever that movie is called uh but they're like they're not ugly people I don't think I don't think they're they're like kids I don't think Joe Pesci is ugly he's you know he he's a he's a he's Daniel Stern I don't think Daniel Stern is
JVL00:09:56is ugly I just think Daniel Stern is the closest thing this movie has to a movie star and matinee
Sonny00:10:01idol what about what's her name who's the who's the mom uh Catherine O'Hara she's great I think she's great she's wonderful attractive she's she's got John Candy John Candy America's Catherine
JVL00:10:12O'Hara is a wonderful comic actress and she does great with I'm just saying this is a movie filled with people who you might see in your grocery store not people who look like they would be on
Mike00:10:23movie in movies yes I I really I really had a thing for the grocery store cashier um when I was growing up so
JVL00:10:31oh I yeah I see that she might be the hottest the hottest uh female in this movie one one
Mike00:10:37connection to this double feature that you you probably know but uh Bonnie Bedelia who plays Mrs. McClain is the aunt of Macaulay and Kieran Culkin I did not know that yeah well how about that we go how do you like them apples how are you boys doing interesting Sonny what's going on
Sonny00:10:56um not much on my end I do we want to do we want to talk about I I want to I want to talk about the bonus stuff that we we kind of hinted at here because there was a there was an interesting there was a there's an interesting little factoid that came out this week uh the the first three episodes of Reacher came out on Prime Video and it immediately made uh the show the high the most on Prime Video this year who knows what metrics they use I God only knows what numbers they're using but you know most hours watched uh by for five minutes in a something or other household um anyway point is people love Jack Reacher and this causes all sorts of consternation on the internet because people are like I don't know anyone who's watching Reacher it's very it's very like uh you know the apocryphal Pauline Kael you know I don't even know anyone who voted for Nixon sort of thing it's like it's it Reacher exists in this entirely separate universe that is dominated by American dads and we are three American dads we are three American dads I should I should I want to I want to make that I want to make that very clear before I say and so we we are now watching Reacher and we're gonna on every Monday we're gonna talk about another episode of Reacher we're gonna do that is
JVL00:12:14that what we're doing I feel like this is the inverse of transparent the the Jeffrey Tambor show that was on uh and it was prime yeah prime show and which people just talked about all the as if it were nobody uh Game of Thrones or something and I was like I literally don't know anybody who's ever seen a single minute of this it was the TV Academy people were like the only people watching yeah that's what I'm saying this is the inverse of that well Reacher Reacher
Sonny00:12:39is very much the or like Mad Men or you know basically there there's a whole universe of shows that were watched by about three million people in New York City and Los Angeles and Chicago in DC and that nobody else in the country watched um and uh Reacher is the the absolute the way I described it on Twitter is America's America's dads really are the dark matter of the streaming universe like we account for tons of viewing hours on tons of Prime Video stuff in particular this is what I've always found very frustrating about Prime Video Prime Video wants to be this like destination for you know highbrow award-winning stuff they want to spend a billion dollars on Lord of the Rings crap that's not very good and all they really need to do or make a bunch of shows like Reacher because like Reacher Jack Ryan the boys these shows do huge numbers for them they do huge numbers and they are all watched largely by America's dads these are these are what I have dad core is like the Prime Video Bosch Bosch on Amazon like this is this is like Prime's go-to market is the dad core dad chav chav dad sure question question Sonny why is that because let me
Mike00:13:56start with this by saying there's nothing about Amazon Prime the video app that jumps out to me as being more accessible or whatever than Netflix or like what is it about Amazon
Sonny00:14:13I here's it's an interesting question and I I don't know except for like whoever was doing the programming there early on made a bunch of or at least not even early on like relatively recent more recently the last three or four years. You know picking up things like the terminal list which is the the Chris Pratchett which did again huge numbers that show with Anton Fuqua that he made or again like the Jack Ryan show there there just is they they like have they have like hit a vein of of audience interest that is kind of untapped anywhere else like Netflix isn't really doing stuff like this HBO kind of does stuff like this but not really it's it is like the prime video is the only place doing it. Now why. Why has I don't know I I wonder if I if I had access to Amazon Prime stats like who signs up for prime JBL maybe maybe maybe you have thoughts on this I feel like you you have better a better sense of how audiences and customers work I bet prime appealed more to men than women. Can I can I throw that out there you mean as a service as a service service not not the video the actual like the original idea. Yes prime video or of of Amazon Prime which is like I'm going to spend $100 a year and everything's going to come to me for you know two day shipping free I am I wonder I I wonder if that appealed more to men first or more to women first.
JVL00:15:40So I I I look at this on a different vector I believe that when prime first arrived it was mostly it was more for young people who are impatient and one of their Amazon stuff faster. And that over time my sense is that it has become more for older people because those people have aged up right so if you if you jumped on right right so if you jumped on prime as a 25 year old well you're now a middle aged guy and you are happy to spend $100 a year to get your things faster to you whereas uh some of the youths view that as I ain't gonna give Jeff Bezos my $100 right or something like that and plus you know we started when prime was $60 a year. Or something like that and so so I think it skews older just because you have more disposable income and uh times money right and so you right this is in the one of the I honestly think that the the big thing for prime is families because prime allows you to get things you need without having to take your children to the damn store take damn wiener kids to the damn store so I mean maybe I'm wrong about this I don't know I would quibble with one Sonny I believe the real dark matter of streaming is children because I think the number of streaming hours content chewed up by and I mean maybe maybe like children under six even is it's just enormous because they'll just put it on and leave it on for hours at a time
Sonny00:17:12cocoa melon and bluey and that stuff is definitely a big it's an enormous vector of of uh streaming hours that is that is absolutely I would not be surprised
JVL00:17:25if bluey was the single most popular streaming show on streaming anywhere if that was I'm
Sonny00:17:30pretty sure it's still cocoa melon I think cocoa melon is like we're talking like if
JVL00:17:35you could have stranger things or bluey or cocoa melon you'd rather have bluey or cocoa
Sonny00:17:38melon yeah if you could only pick one well see this is again this gets into the it gets into the various competing urges right so like in theory prime video should be making nothing but series like Reacher where they cost like 30 or 40 million bucks and you get enormous numbers and it's just like it's basically a western it's like a dude comes into town and clears things out and a big guy hurts bad people like it's a very basic
Mike00:18:05simple story with some like Sherlock Holmes or like not Sherlock Holmes whatever detective
Sonny00:18:09work sure sure I mean but it's but the but the fundamental premise is big man hurts bad people and like that is that is what that and Amazon for whatever reason really does not want to be known as the dad core channel they really want to have their marvelous Miss Maisel's and they're gonna sell diapers to man so I I guess
Mike00:18:32I I I I think store they don't want to be in an itch but don't want to be in any net don't you think that there's a there is it seems to me that all the streaming stuff sort of got things backward well in a lot of ways but in terms of it's like they wanted the prestige first and and then. And then they're sort of like back filling it with oh wait like how do we actually keep people like it am I wrong about that it it seems like like everybody who's like in the highest positions in the streaming services like their first priority seems backward from what their what their priority ought to be which is what you're describing Sonny nobody
Sonny00:19:14turning this stuff out nobody spends enough time trying to gain audiences that's my that's my big yeah I I know I mean I I I think that that's overstating things a little bit because they do a pretty good job of some of them do a pretty good job of capturing attention and eyeballs but I mean the the model you know the thing look at look at like HBO right in theory all of these companies are kind of modeled on HBO HBO was an enormously profitable company where I like billions billions in profit not revenue like billions in profit and then AT&T buys them and AT&T is like wait how are we gonna let's what are we gonna do with HBO and and figure out how to make this appeal to more people and it was just like no that's not how it works like it appeals to a niche that pays a lot of money for the ability to watch these shows and that's that's where the profit comes from it doesn't come from being a network that puts out shows watched by 20 million people it's a it's a famously
JVL00:20:14sunny there was a moment where the the guy from AT&T was in charge of it was a lot said publicly you know the old HBO was great at putting out six super high quality shows a year and we're gonna do a hundred high quality shows a year yeah John Stanky
Sonny00:20:29or whatever his name John Stanky and it was just like it was it was at that moment and really you can trace everything that has happened in the media landscape over the last 10 years to that moment when I was like oh oh they're gonna kill HBO they're gonna they're gonna kill it they're gonna they're gonna destroy this whole thing and sure enough the the you know now we have max max service paramount max WB is supposedly looking to absorb paramount somehow my theory at this point is that David Zaslav is basically the Jesus Christ of debts he's just taking everybody's debts onto his personal but and then he's gonna wipe them all out in one big stroke and free every every media company from the uh from the awfulness of their billions upon billions of dollars in debt I don't know man it's it's such a mess oh wonderful Michael
Mike00:21:21how are you fine uh uh we're we are taping this just a few days before Christmas and we're just uh at my house just uh getting ready ready for Christmas the kids have been out of school since last Friday and um like really it like it's becoming for these long breaks it's becoming shorter and shorter the amount of time that like things just explode uh between the time that they're off like in the time that it explodes is that that that time where like they are no longer sort of like excited about being off from school or like occupied with and then they just start going at each other like uh screaming like this morning this morning it was like they're screaming at each other while they're playing a board game because like they they can't they're they are getting on each other's nerves and then that gets on our nerves and then we're like getting onto them and it used to take like three or four days of a of a break from school to get there and now it's happening like like six hours into yeah or 30 minutes it's just it i need them to be out of the house preach brother but i i love i love the holidays i love being around the family and all
Sonny00:22:43that stuff but i need them to be out the house so my my kids schools have done the weirdest thing so usually they're on the same they're they aren't in the same school district my kid goes to my youngest goes to like a private school slash daycare and then my my older one goes to you know the local elementary school um but they're on different break cycles this this this christmas break which is the worst so like my my son has been home for the last week my daughter starts coming home next week they'll both be out together for a week and then he goes back to school and she's out for one more week it's just like why is this happening to me what have i done to deserve this whatever what who who have i sinned against
Mike00:23:23to bring this calumny onto myself and my family it's almost like it's almost like the the private schools take a certain amount of pride in not having any of this not being synchronized with
Sonny00:23:37the public usually usually our our public school is actually really good about our private school is really good about synchronizing stuff with the the public schools actually like it's been it's it they're usually really good about it and when something when something is off if they like have messed up the schedule they're usually like pretty apologetic about it and like the parents get mad at the private school they're like why are you doing but this year when the schedules came out we were just like well we can't blame them because like why why are why is the elementary school still in school on december 21st that's nuts like why are why are the kids still there they're gonna be out of school until like january 10th or something like why is this happening
JVL00:24:16it's ridiculous today was the last day of school for my kids and they're back on january 3 or
Mike00:24:22january 2. really yeah yeah not not not for us yeah but i much prefer the week before christmas being off and then a day or two after the new year get them back into school much prefer that than than what sonny's dealing with which sounds sounds awful uh by the way can i just say that and this is for the catholics in the audience the the the i know we go through this what every six years eight years whatever it is um i don't do loop years very well but the the the christmas on monday thing is so it's it's it's just the worst because you know you got so it's the shortest advent you can have yep you've got the fourth sunday of advent that on christmas eve and then it's like figuring out when you're gonna go to mass right so you've got to go either so so we we've sort of gamed out the the the possibilities and jvl i would like to know what you think i should how i should how we should rank these options for mass because uh you're obligated to go to mass on sunday for for sunday mass and for christmas so here are the options in no particular order you can go uh saturday night vigil yep for the fourth sunday of advent and you can go to the christmas eve vigil for christmas mass that's option one saturday night night vigil for uh sunday fourth sunday of advent and you can go to mass on christmas on monday you can go to sunday morning mass for fourth sunday of advent and christmas eve vigil two masses on the same day you can go sunday morning mass and christmas day mass and and is that it are those are those the options there i think yeah i think that's about it mutations so which which is the best vigil vigil vigil squared v2 squared i feel like that's right
JVL00:26:30you do not ever want to try to get young children to church on christmas morning i agree with that that should be against the geneva convention for anybody right telling kids oh look at all those presents santa came for you don't touch any of them we have to go to church first that's horrible and all this is make them hate church well doesn't your parish offer a noon mass on christmas sure that's no better it's no better because your kids have been up since five in the morning and everybody's exhausted by noon right then come down from present opening and the kids are you know really should be taking a nap although they won't no no vigil vigil uh is the clear first choice in the second choices sunday morning mass and then double it up yep go back in in for the vigil mass i think that's right
Mike00:27:21there's the more i think about it there's no there it's those two options and then everything else
JVL00:27:28yeah beneath so there you go sonny how about you guys when are you guys going to mass i got no idea
Sonny00:27:33what you're talking about i got no idea what i need my my wife has been going to the episcopal church with the kids that's great i i i take sunday morning and i go to the grocery store they go they go to church i go to the grocery store it's great that's nice for everyone that's good uh okay well
Mike00:27:51uh maybe next week i'll update next time yeah let me know what we did so um let's move on though let's move on real quick to the box office because the number one movie at the box office this week is wonka and to quote my wife is there a wonka movie a new one yes i knew that there was she was shocked and look it's almost 39 million dollars
Sonny00:28:21yeah it grossed about 40 million dollars in its opening weekend uh and it is it's it's already after the first two weekdays it's up to nearly 50 million uh the uh there there was a really dumb series of like aggrieved arguments by people who were like why are we why did we say the marvels was such a failure and wonka isn't because you know the marvels grossed 46 million dollars in its opening weekend and wonka grossed 40 million and it's sexism it's sexism and blah blah and like and i just want to i i have a when i'm when i am dictator there will be a law that nobody is allowed to tweet about box office unless they spent their formative years going to box office mojo three times a day because if you if you if you haven't done that you don't get to you don't get to talk about box office uh and one of the reasons for that is because nobody has any concept of things like budgets or how movies hold how different genres hold over weeks or different times of the year when movies come out so uh wonka made 40 million dollars this weekend um and it is a family musical that is coming out at christmas time which means it will probably have a multiple in the four and a half to five and a half range it could do something crazy like uh you remember a few years back the uh the greatest showman had a multiple of like 18 or some some ridiculous nonsense number uh the multiple of course is you take the opening weekend and you divide the final gross by it that's what the multiple is uh so you if wonka has a multiple of five it'll end up with about 200 million dollars uh domestic um which would be uh two and a half times what marvels the marvels gross just domestically um and it's gonna it's gonna blow it out of the water internationally but like again just on top of like set all that aside the big difference is the fucking budgets the the wonka cost 125 million dollars to make still too expensive for the for a movie that is bad i know you're a paddington shill jvl but this paddington 2 this this director this paul king fellow rubs me the wrong way with his whimsy and his niceness oh you don't like his whimsy wonka should be a terrifying nightmare creation and instead it's timothy chalamet being like i can't read i'm so stupid look look at my great chocolate everyone be nice to me and i hate it i hate it but uh it's gonna be a big hit it's gonna be a big hit um uh the marvels the marvels cost 275 million dollars to make that's why that movie is a failure that movie is a flop because it was too expensive this movie is not a flop because it wasn't as expensive and it's going to make more money it's not rocket science
JVL00:30:59idiots well also when sequels make one-tenth of the money of the part ones that's typically bad it's not a good sign it's a franchise franchises are supposed to perform differently
Sonny00:31:15yes so anyway uh question a question about wonka sure what is the
Mike00:31:20point why do they keep going back to this well i think he's got 700 million dollars that's what
Sonny00:31:26the point is that's what the point is mike the movie's gonna make money that's the point the point of movies isn't to create art or move the human spirit it's to put money in david zaslav's pocket and the there are people who are going to see wonka are doing that very well don't be don't
JVL00:31:43be mad at me somebody else in the bulwark goes to hollywood about whether or not musicals were
Sonny00:31:50well fertile territory for making money so so i was i i had this discussion with scott mendelsohn and the important thing here is that it has not been marketed as a musical it had the warner brothers is hiding the ball it is not showing people that this is a musical and their their stratagem of lying to the audience has worked in their favor it has worked in their favor
JVL00:32:12but then the multiple would not be high right if the audiences were not liking it if you got wind up with a low multiple you
Sonny00:32:20got it you got a trick them to come in and then you and then you're stuck in a situation where like families have to take their kids because the kids are you know oh they like
JVL00:32:29it then it seems to me like this is making money what is making money i mean nobody nobody's
Mike00:32:35gonna dispute that so i just i was just trying to pay me to see it i was just trying to make a creative point that the original movie with gene wilder was perfection and there's no horrible oh it's we don't need to get into this again it's a terrific movie and it's perfect and gene wilder is wonderful and why why mess with it i why do i i don't want to
JVL00:33:03see timothy horrible piece of dreck the original you're wrong absolutely awful you're wrong
Sonny00:33:10i'm surprised you aren't into the movie where all the children are punished for being little
JVL00:33:14shits i am not into that um i will say this though i i i find it interesting and i'm not sure what it says maybe it doesn't say anything that wonka which people had very high hopes for right the studio was very high on it uh does this but then the west side spielberg's west side story remake does what 20 million total domestic that movie absolutely died and then and i that it's such a wild difference in it when the quality of the products i mean maybe they're not equivalent maybe one of
Mike00:33:54those movies is better than the other but they're roughly equivalent and it is something
JVL00:33:58about the maybe it is just that one of them is marketed as not a musical yeah and the other is marketed as a musical maybe that's entirely what it is i i do not think that
Sonny00:34:08you should undersell the again i there's a reason they don't market these movies as musicals and that is because you have a very large segment of the audience that simply does not want to go to musicals the the other the other issue really though is that west side story is a movie for old people yeah west side west side story is a movie for old people it's a movie that appeals to old people and it came out in like right after the pandemic people well i'm talking about the new one you know the the it came out right after the pandemic the the olds were still terrified of going out anywhere you know because of you know the disease that was that was going around um and uh and and like that that is wonka on the other hand is designed to appeal to young people and families i mean that is like it's it's just it's just a different segment of the argument designed to appeal to theater kids i i i went to see it because you know i i try to see i try to see everything and you have a professional responsibility i man did i not in i it's not even that i hated it i was just bored out of my mind it's a boring movie it's like it's incredibly boring and dull so i'm not uh uh i but it's you know whatever it's gonna it's gonna make money because there's there's actually there really isn't very much out for families right now it's it's a pretty um it's you know wishes out of theaters uh my migration the new illumination dreamworks movie is is about to come out but that's not out yet wishes out of theaters it's basically oh no it's out of it's out of the draft house near me i i don't it might still be at the
Mike00:35:43amc no i can't not take my kids to it um my kids wanted to go
Sonny00:35:49and i i wanted to take them and i just we didn't have time and it like it's already
Mike00:35:53gone so all right uh okay well uh that's uh that's the box office as we close out uh 2023 uh should we talk about a movie that came out 35 plus years ago yes yes this movie of the uh of the i don't know of all time sonny do you want to give us a big boy review of
Sonny00:36:19it die hard which came out 35 years ago uh except not 35 years ago because it's a summer blockbuster it came out july 22nd 1988 um uh is the story of new york city detective john mclean who has to fight off a group of criminals who have taken over his wife's place of employ where everyone has gathered for a christmas party and win her back and stop bad guys from uh killing everyone it's a it's a real feel good blood spattered uh high concept blockbuster i love it i love this movie it's perfect the the thing about the thing about die hard i i can't believe we haven't done a die hard episode before i could have sworn we had but maybe maybe we haven't um the the why the reason why die hard succeeds and this i am not like reinventing the wheel here or making a brand speaking new argument the reason die hard succeeds is because it has this great array of villains who were all um who all have their own personalities they all have names they all have uh their
JVL00:37:32own kind of except for huey lewis who everybody refers to as huey lewis who they but they
Sonny00:37:39but like you know what i mean like it's like you have hans gruber who has a personality he had he likes nice suits and he talks about uh you know uh where yasser arafat gets his clothing and like it's it's it's he he does his thing you've got the you've got the the nerd computer hacker guy who does his you've got the the uh asian martial arts guy who eats the chocolate bar you know just because it's it's hanging out like there are all these little things you've got the like swedish goon with his brother uh carl who's the hothead and his brother who's annoyed by him and and it's just like it it they like you know all of these movies so many movies focus on the heroes and like what makes them interesting and you know they're they're different personality quirks and this is a movie that very much uh you know john mclean talks about this a little bit in the director's commentary very john mctiernan uh john mctiernan i'm sorry john mctiernan talks about this a little bit in the director's commentary but like it's a movie that allows the audience to take some joy in the the criminality the the skilled criminality of these people like there's something about watching excellence at work and there's something about watching a plan come together and oftentimes you know in a heist movie like oceans 11 or whatever the the protagonists are the ones pulling off the heist you know hans gruber and his team are clearly the antagonists here but you are still in a weird way cheering for them at the very least because that is the the engine of the plot that is what is keeping things going try to figure out why they're there what they're there to take uh what they're doing that is what that is what is interesting and and of course look i mean it's it's one of the most it's one of the most perfectly cast movies almost by accident that has ever ever been made i mean bruce willis uh you know before this was the moonlighting guy and they they were desperate they like they had they had gone out with offers to a bunch of people couldn't get anybody to do the movie bruce willis was like fine i'll do it for you know 10 million dollars or whatever he got some enormous sum of money even though he was not a he was not an action star at the time um and he is just i like again we talked about this in the moonlighting episode a few weeks ago bruce willis appears on the screen fully formed as bruce willis action star um and it's it's amazing to watch uh but also you know alan rickman this is his first movie this is he was a theater guy before this he was not uh he was not making movies he comes out he has what is objectively according to science a perfect voice this is a true it's him him and jeremy irons who would play a villain in uh die hard with a vengeance have it like like the most aesthetically pleasing according to science voices uh in in actordom um and he's he's wonderful he's wonderful he's great he's sly and funny and uh and ridiculous and terrifying when he needs to be it just it's it's all so good uh and i love it um and i love this movie and i i have resigned myself to watching it every christmas because that's when my wife wants to watch it even though it is definitely a summer blockbuster film and not a christmas
JVL00:40:47movie jvl so uh i mean die hard succeeds for a bunch of different reasons uh as sonny said it's it sketches all of these characters and not just those there are more like ellis you know like we we know ellis right we know argyle we know sergeant al we haven't even talked about al we haven't even talked about agent johnson and agent johnson this is one of my favorite favorite that i this had never even registered before this last time it's probably the thirtieth time i've seen this movie when the two agent johnson's show up and they introduce themselves the first one says agent johnson the other one says special agent johnson and then he says under his breath no relation yeah it's it's hysterical it's it's just this hysterical line throughout because people don't remember one of them is african-american one of them is white and uh the whole you know those two guys you get a character there's this phenomenal character moment for them when they're in the helicopter and one of them is like shooting out and he goes just like in saigon and the other one looks at his partner goes i was in middle school dickhead it's hysterical right this is there is that those are two characters now sketched in ways that we can all understand in like a total of what thirty five words and so the the movie is very very good at that but it is a perfect movie by which i mean that every it's like an intricate piece of clockwork or watchmaking right every gear every bridge everything that's in it has a function and a purpose and it is elegantly built and it just sort of moves and winds and it's you know like we're gonna strip him of his shoes in a way that's credible and that winds up mattering later right we're gonna everything in it right we know whatever now every every Chekhov's gun in the movie is is used at some point in it and but there's one other thing which is that i watching this i did think about sports dynasties right so what is what is one of the ways that you get a dynasty in sports and the most common way is that a franchise drafts somebody who turns out to be a historically great player tom brady but gets them in like the third round or something right this is you know no matter the sport that you're in it's the you know if you if you pick up michael jordan with the third pick uh and then you get scotty pippen with the 37th pick right or you get uh tony parker and uh manu ginobili right tom brady for deeply and so this movie had mike who tom brady not only is it john mctiernan who i think this is like he had done predator but he was not yet the most accomplished action director in the world his dp is john duvant the guy who will go on to direct speed yeah get bruce willis in his first film role who become one of the most bankable action stars of his generation alan rickman his first film role who will wind up being i mean it is a bunch of these all-time greats showing up basically for the first time in movies together and so of course the thing they make is magic yeah that's it i mean it's
Sonny00:44:25it really and it really is just economical storytelling throughout jbl as you mentioned like there's this great moment very early on when uh the camera kind of pans around holly's room or holly's office and you see uh her put her the the picture of her and uh bruce willis or the you see you see the picture of of her and bruce willis together in in in in you know a family portrait or whatever and bruce willis gets to nakatomi plaza and is trying to find her name and the little computer yeah and it's not under his last name it's under her last name and it just like tells the whole story of their relationship and like these two almost wordless moments and it's like wow okay that's it that's that's it we've got it we've got and got
JVL00:45:10the also establishes why they're not able to why hans is not able to link her to john mclean yes right right this dual function it's so economical it is it is um by the way
Mike00:45:24to a sort of corollary to sonny's point about the villains sort of being these well-sketched uh interesting they're the focal point of the movie in so many ways so i did a i did a sort of ranking of and obviously the the thieves are the big are the biggest villains but then you go down the line so so next it's it's the tv reporter dick thorberg richard thorberg uh then it's the fbi next who are like not as bad and then it's the lapd and and then it's ellis and like so these are all ostensibly good guys right the media uh the the cops uh one of the one of the hostages and they are they are bad in in so many like you know they they are they are villainous in their own
JVL00:46:15ways i want to defend ellis okay oh oh defend ellis i want to defend ellis because if ellis was a bad guy he would have said to hans hey you let me go and i'll tell you something that's going to let you catch this guy and then he would have said this chick over here is his wife ellis didn't do that that's true ellis sort of took it upon himself to pretend that he was john's buddy friend yeah right correct and now ellis didn't realize that that's that he was going to wind up dead like he was just this cocksure coked up idiot uh you know corporate weasel but what he did was stupid but it wasn't evil and if he had been evil he would have sold her out fair enough okay he wasn't evil but he was stupid that's for sure takagi also not evil which is interesting for the moment right for the moment in which this movie is made you could imagine mr takagi could have been portrayed as mildly villainous but instead he's like noble and kind of totally cool right we're all basically on takagi's side
Sonny00:47:23there there is this weird kind of yellow peril moment uh that this movie takes place in where like nakatomi plaza you know mr mr takagi and like again it's just it's just it was a very it was a very strange moment in the movies and in the culture writ large you know black rain is coming out around this time uh you've got you've got all sorts of uh what what was the crichton book rising sun yeah um uh it and like again not not villainous it's it's it's it's almost totally incidental like the the weirdest thing about it is again this is why the the christmas party angle works and this is why i've always thought it would be very funny to remake die hard as a fourth of july movie and have like the japanese company forcing everybody to come celebrate at the building to watch the fireworks like you know like totally misunderstanding what fourth the fourth of july is and the relationship between families and businesses and all that but like neither here nor there um the uh the it's it really is this really interesting uh moment in in movies we were god did we did we do a um did we do a fatal attraction episode recently did we talk fatal attraction i don't think we did i forget not when i was on the show i i so i i watched it recently for something uh and there's this really interesting they they uh they're they're going to a book party uh michael douglas you know is he works at a publishing house in this movie i think he's either a lawyer works at a publishing house and he goes to this he goes to this um book party and it's it's a book party for like i i i can only describe it as like make your life more japanese it's like it's like a japanese self-help book or something but it's like it's you know guys a guy in a you know kimono like doing do it like very like hot and i was just like i was like you could not make that today you could not do that that is against the rules that is but it but again it's the same thing it's just like late 80s moment where like everyone is like japan is taking over they're buying everything up they're gonna they're gonna rule the world something they
JVL00:49:35bought all this american real estate this is not nakatomi plaza is i mean this is around the moment that i believe japanese companies bought 30 rock right they bought rockefeller
Sonny00:49:44center um like it was a real there was a huge panic over this stuff in america and like
Mike00:49:49toyota was out selling gm and oh yeah so um so i took notes on this watch uh just just to note all the things that i loved like small and big and do you should we close out by me sharing these uh please thoughts so thought the first the color palette in the first 15 20 minutes of the movie uh as the sun is going down is like i don't even know how to describe it i just love it there's something menacing about the kind of orange yellow uh sky pinkish sky against the the kind of darkness that's in the building and there's just something that that every time i watch this it like that pulls me in to the movie so so much because of course everything else that happens at night and and and there's a lot of stuff about light you know that going on in the in in the movie um and i just i just love that okay so that's that's note the first um i love when uh when mclean is going through a certain point uh going through some of the unfinished parts of the building and he does the double take at the at the nude nude picture of isn't that great it's just it's like it's just it's like so small but like he does it and then of course he comes back around there you know a couple minutes later and like taps it and it's just great love that um i love that when reginald vel johnson gets the call in the 7-eleven and he comes and so a lesser movie would have him get in the car and then drive uh to and even maybe do the shot of him driving in in the squad car up to nakatomi plaza but instead he steps out and like on the other side of the gas station like toward the road and looks at it and i don't know why i just love so great that they they they spent an extra four seconds of film time just to show him doing that that's yeah it's it's it's it's terrific and so like cinematic and i loved it um i love um when ode to joy plays in the minor key as as the crew is coming in it's just a great little uh uh flourish of the score um okay when when paul gleason's cops are gonna go the swat team is going in and the four right the four uh people are going in cops are going in one of them gets pricked by a rosebush as he's walking in and like does like this kind of like ow like no which is such a great little foreshadowing of like how how fucked they are and they don't even know it going in love that part um love it when carl mouths asian dawn and hans gruber says i read about them in time magazine love that so great so great because i love it i love how he mouths it like and then and then he just kind of like they're they're they're playing with the everybody and that's what makes these villains so great okay uh you already mentioned this jvl but agent johnson agent johnson special agent johnson no relation love that so funny um uh okay the oh the the callback as you said every there's there's like a gazillion checkoff guns in here uh when uh the the watch at the end right with uh uh that's what that's what they get off of holly to to let hans fall um i love that because uh at the beginning when when hellis is like hey you've seen this watch you've seen this watch man can i can
JVL00:53:37i interrupt there for a second yeah on this so my my favorite my favorite review of die hard was written by uh for any cool news like you know 15 years ago by alexander pot and uh she says that you know there is a reading of this in which here i'm going to quote her diehard is nothing more than a patriarchal blue-collar fantasy a less educated white guy saves corporate doofuses and his overly assertive wife by conquering a feminine high-class thugs in a phallus-shaped exploding tower uh and he goes on to explain why that that's not what makes it so great but it is what makes it so great on the other hand hans dies because the bracelet on a rolex jubilee fails that seemed to me to be a comment on 1980s access and i had never really registered that before i hadn't really thought about the watch this time i was you know when she says oh you know ellis is like it's a rolex right and you see it for a minute it's a jubilee the jubilee bracelets are i don't like jubilee bracelets sorry david and and that's what fails and because and is what winds up killing hans it's great it's a great
Mike00:54:49little meta comment i love it uh okay two more two more notes um the snowing uh barabond sheets at the end um as they're falling out it's it's it it proves and i don't want to like the whole debate over christmas movie or not as stupid but it proves that it is a christmas movie because it's it's it's it's snowing on christmas in los angeles with all the barabond sheets love that um also i just love barabonds like it's such a great movie i want to own a barabond once just once i want to have one exactly um well if you just find it you can just take it it's yours you're bearing it exactly it's here as long as you're bearing it you get the you get the uh the the the bond the ownership uh and then finally um i love the fake out uh where carl comes back at the very end and powell reginald val johnson gets his redemption it pays off his character arc so it's so great but i but i i joked about this the last time i
Sonny00:55:49watched this back in 2022 but like it is actually a very important movie where a cop gets over his fear of killing children so he can kill again like that's like no heartwarming that's his whole arc his whole arc is like i'm gun shy because i accidentally shot a kid and that made me feel real bad i gotta get over this man i gotta get over my fear of shooting people so i can do my
Mike00:56:12job it's wonderful yeah exactly um but i i love i love the way that no pun intended they shoot that you know where it's it's the reveal you're not sure who's gotten him exactly and and it's it is so heroic for for powell you know there's a it's such a great hero moment where he's been he's been cheerleading john mcclain this whole time and he gets to have his moment just just it's just great what a great fucking movie love it love die hard you can't top it uh that's all i gotta say about that oh question question do you think there's some reference to richard thornburg the politician uh in naming the tv uh reporter richard thornburg no yes i don't think so it's like just it was just it's like always it's distracting to me i don't think i mean william atherton just
JVL00:57:08looks like a richard thornburg doesn't he does he absolutely does yeah
Mike00:57:12so uh okay any any other thoughts on die hard one thing i'll save it for the outtake all right uh well that's all the time we're giving to this episode everyone have a merry christmas a uh happy new year we'll probably be back before the the new year but uh and uh we will talk to you
JVL00:57:31next time what uh what you got for us this one there was a more than a twinge of melancholy for me when i realized this is the first time i had watched die hard since alan rickman was dead and bruce willis could no longer act and that really hit me i mean i don't know like we live in a world without alan rickman and bruce willis like that's geez is this how this how our parents felt as like gary cooper and jimmy stewart started dying no i don't know i have no idea but no
Mike00:58:19it's it's it is weird and and it doesn't it doesn't feel like it's a 35 year old movie until you until you think about things like that because it's it's it's timeless otherwise but um yeah that is very sad thanks for thanks for ending things on a uh on a download there
Sonny00:58:37jay fucking bummer man sure it's fine
Mike00:58:41Can you do on your own?
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