criterionforum.org

Well I always thought someone should have gone to prison in connection with the Rollerball remake, but that was still a surprising piece of news!

The annual viewing shall commence tonight.

Tom Hagen wrote:The annual viewing shall commence tonight.

Welcome to the party, pal.

Have a few laughs

You should call an emergency line and order a pizza.

Markson wrote:Not sure where else to put this: McTiernan is going to prison.

Director John McTiernan Loses His Pellicano Appeal. Could spend up to 12 months in prison. I hope he gets to make more movies when he gets out. And I hope they're better than his most recent work, "The Political Prosecutions of Karl Rove" (Yes, he believes he is a victim of some conspiracy, and he blames it on Karl Rove. Watch the doc here). Rollerball is pretty good, btw. And this is as good a time/place as any to recommend the excellent french blu-ray of The 13th Warrior.

I would add his last Hollywood film Basic to those recommendations as well. It's a standard military thriller, but still enjoyable. Though everybody saw this jailtime coming, it's sad the last thing that he was working on doing went to someone else, because the premise (WWII vet and Russian *I think* enemy cat-and-mouse games in the wildnerness) sounded right up McTiernan's alley.

Fox releasing a new 25th Anniversary Blu-ray box set on 1/29, most likely to help promote the new film. If they use all the supplements from the 2001 DVD set (something they didn't do for the previous set), I'd be on it.

Hopefully they'll finally include the Unrated Live Free or Die Hard so I can ditch the DVD

It sounds like there will be more new features besides the extra disc. Hart Bochner has supposedly recorded an audio commentary track, which leads me to believe there will be a 2nd one on the disc of the first film with members of the cast and crew.

domino harvey wrote:Hopefully they'll finally include the Unrated Live Free or Die Hard so I can ditch the DVD

Apparently the box is just the old discs plus a new bonus disc, ie still no Unrated cut on Blu. What a joke

Jesus, I thought that sweatshirt was already tasteless when it was first posted here...

domino harvey wrote:

domino harvey wrote:Hopefully they'll finally include the Unrated Live Free or Die Hard so I can ditch the DVD

Apparently the box is just the old discs plus a new bonus disc, ie still no Unrated cut on Blu. What a joke

Is the unrated cut any better?

If I recall it has CGI blood added to it, which I thought was a little distracting (haven't seen it in a while, though, so I could be misremembering.) But the most important addition is the "yippie kay yay" line is left intact. If I recall correctly the "mother fucker" gets drowned out by a gunshot in the PG-13 version. I don't recall any real plot changes, though.

domino harvey wrote:Apparently the box is just the old discs plus a new bonus disc, ie still no Unrated cut on Blu. What a joke

Yipsee ki-yay motherfailure.

I think you mean "Mee-stah Falcon."

Sounds a bit like he's got some sour grapes, but he's not all gloomy about it it seems. I really hope he gets to make another film.

Thankfully my set only has the first three, I'd only get a new one if they filmed an alternate ending to 3rd where Simon accidentally opens the bomb suitcase and asks if anyone has a 4gallon jug.

Speaking of the third one, I noticed John Doman (Rawls on The Wire, and more recently popping up on House of Cards and Gotham) has a bit part as the foreman McClane talks to before the whole aqueduct sequence.

I've been revisiting the first three, which still stand up today. Even the 2nd one despite bordering on being a complete mess. Back to back with something like the Fast & Furious franchise, it would probably stand out as more transgressive and left-field. I have great affection and reverence for the first one, but as time has gone by With A Vengeance still holds up too. The ending is a little underwhelming but I at least like that it ends on McClane finally calling his wife.

It's not really for me to say whether it (by which I mean the 1988 film) is the best movie of the action genre writ large, but it should definitely be in that discussion. Among other things, and I think this gets lost on people, is how much it skewers action movie convention as much as it celebrates it. More subliminally it's a piece of it's time too. Limousines with tape decks, television stations with carpeted backgrounds, and a gallon of gas cost roughly three quarters. This extends to the way the film was made too, using as few sets and digital assistance as possible.

Not really Die Hard related, but I was watching Speed on television again last night and sort of thinking very similar things about that film capturing the mid-90s era too. Maybe it is just that they are both set in L.A. and deal with claustrophobic hostage situations!

The major difference between the two is that Speed takes place almost entirely in daylight, while most of Die Hard is at night. Since Jan de Bont was McTiernan's DP, when he did Speed he must have known to make it as different as he possibly could so not to be entirely accused of ripping off himself essentially.

Just in time for Christmas, La-La Land Records is releasing a 30th anniversary 3-CD set of Michael Kamen's score. Previous releases were taken from stereo or mono sources, whereas this one is from newly discovered multi-tracks (presumably found when Fox was giving this a 4K upgrade), making this the best-sounding release of the score yet. And with the extra tracks and alternate takes, the most complete.