It's what we say we want: The Oscar case *for* Argo.

Argo (review) is not my favorite film of the year.  It didn't even make my best-of-2012 list.  It had to settle for the Runner-Ups section along with fellow nominee/front-runner Lincoln, a choice that caused no end of consternation from my mother-in-law who considers both to among her favorite films of 2012.  My favorite film of 2012 is Cabin In the Woods, a film that had about as much of a chance of winning Best Picture this year as Kung Fu Panda 2 did last year.  My favorite film among those nominated is Zero Dark Thirty, which went from front-runner to also-ran after Sony made the financial choice to not fight back against the frankly shameful 'this film endorses torture!' arguments until after the film's wide release.  There are a few films that are nominated that I don't care for (Les Miserables, Silver Linings Playbook), but I'd have to say that if we're picking a Best Picture on a the basis of what film most positively represents the year that was 2012, Argo is the best and most logical choice.

Review: Snitch (2013) is a potent political diatribe disguised as a solid B-movie action drama.

Snitch

2013
115 minutes
rated PG-13

by Scott Mendelson

Writer/director Ric Roman Waugh and writer Justin Haythe's Snitch (trailer) operates on two levels.  On one hand, it's a pulpy and satisfying B-movie, a distinctly old-fashioned studio programmer about a normal man thrust into an abnormal situation.  The film is compelling and engaging, keeping its head to the ground in terms of plausibility and authenticity.  Even when the film chooses action, the action beats are small-scale and life-sized, which in turn makes them more suspenseful.  But the film also operates on a second level, that of a somewhat angry political polemic.  While the film doesn't go all-in in condemning the entire 'war on drugs', it sticks to a specific portion of that misguided policy and makes an unimpeachable case for its stupidity.  The film thus earns bonus points for being able to successfully mix social moralizing with its action drama while sacrificing little in the way of story or character.

The best Die Hard sequel isn't really a Die Hard sequel.

If you're among the many film nerds rather bummed out about the rock-bottom status of A Good Day To Die Hard and you need something to wash the taste out of your mouth, the likely scenario would be to watch a Die Hard movie.  But say you just watched all of them in the run up to the new film, what then?  There exists another movie, released to little fanfare and poor box office just under seven years ago, that is not only a superior Bruce Willis action drama but arguably is a better "true" Die Hard sequel than the actual four Die Hard sequels.  To be fair, I liked the three prior official sequels, so this isn't the place to tear them down.  But for those who want a kind of alternate universe Die Hard sequel, one that arguably operates as a plausible and emotionally compelling 'final Die Hard' movie, as well as a just plain terrific action drama, I officially recommend Richard Donner's 16 Blocks.  

Rooting against action: How Die Hard 5 is like Lilo and Stitch.

There are any number of problems with A Good Day to Die Hard.  But the biggest sin is that it constructs its "story" in such a way that we end up rooting against John McClane.  No, I don't mean the film makes him a villain or anything that creative, I mean that we spend much of the film not wanting McClane to do what he does best: interfere with the carefully-laid plans of others with impromptu and kamikaze acts of violence.  The other prior Die Hard movies basically operated on a simple premise: John McClane is minding his own business when he gets reluctantly pulled into a horrible situation, a situation for which he is the only real hope to save the proverbial day.  He doesn't want to be the hero, but he damn-well is going to stick it out until the day is saved.  This time it's different.  This time John willingly inserts himself into a situation that he does not completely understand.  This time John is *correctly* viewed as an unwanted nuisance and a distraction by the other good guys who are trying to do their jobs.  For most of the film, John McClane is the problem rather than the solution.  In short, John McClane in A Good Day to Die Hard has become Stitch.

For Presidents' Day: The prescient politics of Air Force One...

In a two-for-one deal, today we discuss both an above-average Die Hard riff and a film explicitly about presidential politics.  As an action picture, Air Force One remains a rather terrific adventure, even if it follows the beat-for-beat structure of Die Hard a bit more than the likes of Under Siege or Speed. It's superbly acted by Harrison Ford and Gary Oldman, while containing several strong action beats and a thoughtful adult presentation of its subject matter. But putting aside its worth as a genre exercise, it was and remains a fascinating piece of subtly political cinema.  First and foremost, it stands as a prime example of the pre-9/11 idea that a big studio popcorn film could have explicit politics, even morally complicated politics, without being considered overtly political.  Second of all, it stands as a potent and prescient meditation on the personality-driven nature of today's governmental bodies, the 'cult of personality' if you will.  The whole film becomes a meditation on the political legacies of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, especially when it comes to our reactions to their respective foreign policy.

Weekend Box Office (02/17/13): Die Hard 5 tops, Save Haven opens well, Beautiful Creatures tanks.

Thanks to an unexpectedly strong second-weekend showing of Identity Thief, there's going to be a lot of wrangling about rank this weekend.  But as you know, I don't care about rank, so let's just get into the numbers.  The biggest opener of the weekend was the stunningly terrible A Good Day To Die Hard, which earned an estimated $25 million for the Fri-Sun weekend, $31 million over the four-day Presidents' Day holiday, and a projected $38 million since opening on Thursday the 14th.  This was the first Die Hard film to open outside of summer, and it's arguable that Fox knew full-well that it had a turkey on its hands.  There were no press screenings until the last minute and Fox didn't even bother to attach a teaser to The Wolverine to prints this weekend, which seemed like a no-brainer save for the danger of being associated with a stunningly bad film.  Nonetheless, the brand is still somewhat strong, although it's obviously waning. Not even playing the inflation game compared to the first three installments which came out in 1988, 1990, and 1995, the fifth Die Hard earned just $3 million more in five days then the fourth picture, Live Free or Die Hard earned over its Fri-Sun weekend back in June 2007.

Review: A Good Day to Die Hard (2013) dies badly.

A Good Day to Die Hard

2013
97 minutes
rated R

by Scott Mendelson 

For a retrospective of the entire series, go HERE.

As my father likes to say, if you don't quit while you're ahead, you'll never be ahead.  By all rights, Live Free or Die Hard (trailer 01) should have been terrible.  It came twelve years after the previous installment, was helmed by the likes of Len Wiseman (a man who managed to make a movie about vampires fighting werewolves boring), ended up with a PG-13, and held back from the press for as long as humanly possible.  Yet, thanks to strong action sequences and a story very much concerned with John McClane coming to terms with his metaphorical death (IE - irrelevance), the fourth entry was just good enough to justify its existence.  But the McClane luck has officially run out.  A Good Day to Die Hard is a terrible film, one of the very worst theatrical movies I have ever seen.  It's willfully stupid, lacking in basic character chemistry and narrative discipline, officially turning John McClane into a borderline insane anti-social lunatic.  It has nothing worth recommending.  A Good Day to Die Hard is basically the movie we all thought we were getting six years ago.

At long last, Dreamworks Land! Dreamworks SKG plays the long game to chase Disney's cultural cachet.

"It's a giant advertisement for a movie studio."  That's the thought that crosses my mind whenever I find myself once again journeying to Disney Land with family in tow on another sunny Sunday morning.  My family and I have season passes and according to the Disney web site we've visited 33 times just in the last membership cycle.  Disneyland and Disney World are not only considered 'the Happiest Place on Earth' but also the defining ultimate destination for family recreation.  For those who don't live in places like California or Florida where Disney has one of their theme parks, a trip to Disney is often considered somewhat of a once-in-a-childhood event.  But at the end of the day, it is no different than any other large-scale amusement park one can find in countless places around the world.  They have neither the fastest roller coasters nor the bumpiest bumper cars.  In fact, the entire Disney corporation, all of its theme parks and merchandise and tie-ins are basically in service of advertising an entertainment company, a movie studio.  When you consider what the Disney name means for so many people, so many children and parents, how it operates as a kind of cultural legacy, that's an incredible achievement. And now, at long last, it looks like Dreamworks is getting into the game as well. I missed the the story back in July, about Dreamworks finally getting their act together regarding amusement parks.  The first one is apparently coming to New Jersey, with another in Shanghai and three more announced today for Russia.  This is a step that I've frankly wondered why they didn't do sooner.

Brandon Peters retrospective reviews: Die Hard 5 (2013)

I was supposed to attend Tuesday's A Good Day to Die Hard screening, with the intent of having a review up Wednesday afternoon.  Alas, my wife got sick (nothing uber-serious), so I still haven't seen the film.  But thankfully Brandon Peters was kind enough to whip up a review in my absence.  I'm intending on seeing the film this weekend and will try to have a review of sorts up then, but in the meantime, let's let Brandon Peters give us his thoughts on the fifth and (for now) final Die Hard adventure...

A Good Day to Die Hard

2013

Director:  John Moore

Starring:  Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, Sebastian Koch, Yuliya Snigir, Radivoje Bukvic, Mary Elizabeth Winstead, Cole Hauser

Rated R

97 minutes

We’re not a hugging family.

                        ~John “Jack” McClane Jr

Let’s start out like this. 

 From the director of Max Payne, The Flight of the Phoenix remake and The Omen remake.

From the writer of X-Men Origins: Wolverine, Hitman and Swordfish.

I know.  How can you contain your excitement?

With that on the table, it should come as no surprise that A Good Day To Die Hard clocks in as an absolute disaster and outright failure.  That this is a film in the beloved Die Hard franchise makes it hard to stomach.  Bruce Willis shows up for a paycheck in film that seemingly goes out of its way to make the viewer dislike it.

Brandon Peters's Die Hard Rankings: Rank Harder

So as always, we do the “cool” thing and rank the films in the series from least to best.  I am going to say while there is a last place, all the Die Hards are well worth your time if you've never seen them.  Its quite easy to just sink into any one of these and enjoy the adventure.  The series features one of the most likable and charismatic leads you’ll find in any franchise, let alone action movie.  That alone makes me excited for any Die Hard film.  My lone wish for the future of the franchise would be one more McTiernan directed film, but I don’t believe that’ll happen.  If this next film is on par with the last one, I’ll be fine.  I’m not expecting it to be the best, just a fun, unique adventure featuring John McClane.