Very entertaining while you’re watching it…but discussing it afterward, you come up with a lot of holes.

Seemed like the filmmakers had established a couple “rules” about the various “vantage points” at the beginning, but those start to fall apart midway through and then it’s a free for all.

Some good performances, completely enjoyable…but not quite what it could have been.

Tour de force performance by Daniel Day Lewis.

Good, but difficult to watch, movie. One of those “oh it was a good movie but really? I don’t ever want to see it again, I don’t know if I could make it through” movies.

A demonstration of the myth behind the American dream.

The myth = work really hard and you’ll become a millionaire and have everything you want.

The truth = work really hard, be ruthless, aggressive, villainous and hard and then maybe you’ll become a millionaire and have everything you want.

Very effective soundtrack. So effective that at a couple points I wanted to stand up and scream JUST TURN THE MUSIC OFF! Really got under your skin, made me completely anxious, heart racing, even in scenes where it didn’t need to be yet.

Powerful and vicious. Felt like checking for dirt under my fingernails as we left the theater.

I remembered this movie. But I did not really remember just how hilariously AWESOME it is.
What a riot.

Merci beaucoup, SuperEggplant.

#1 / Die Hard / The original: Awesome. Just as fun now as it was then. An intelligent crook, surrounded by dufus henchman. An enterprising hero. Great one liners. Great byplay with the LA cop. Lots of fun.

#2 Die Harder: Eh. Pretty much sucks. The double double-cross at the end was lame. The many many references to “why does this keep happening to me/us?” wink wink were lame. The newscaster on the plane? Moron. But it does have one redeeming moment: when Bruce Willis kills the dude by stabbing him in the eye with a huge icicle!

#3 Die Hard: With a Vengeance: Enjoyable, although not great (it’s no #1). Liked that they introduced a new character not connected to either the cops or the crime. Some discontinuity with him being back in NY considering in #2 he has moved to LA and become a cop there / #3 acts like #2 never happened (I guess we can’t blame it for that…). Liked that they figure out it’s subterfuge but a little “same old thing again” on the crime / McClane should have figured it out faster!

#4 Live Free or Die Hard: Years later, an update to the franchise! Entertaining! I liked that they updated it to a very modern-day crime, rather than just a rehash of the same type of terrorism (as really both #s 2 and 3 were — unlike other movies I could name from 2007 that took an “old story” and just did the same old thing with it). Liked the byplay with the kid from the apple commercials. Sort of predictable substituting the presence of the daughter instead of the mother, but fine. But things that made it less enjoyable were: a) too many explosions for no reason (rewatch #1, where the explosions are more integral to the plot!); b) if the Gabriel dude is such an amazing hacker, why would he have all these underlings doing his hacking for him now? seems like he would want to be doing it himself, and the actor seemed too young for the role (since he was meant to be the contemporary of the head FBI dude); c) McClane seems a bit dumbed down from #1 certainly and perhaps #3 as well.

Gold Medal: #1
Silver: #4
Bronze: #3
Not even an honorable mention, but for the icicle: #2.

One of those movies with a bunch of recognizable actors that disappeared from theaters very fast so you know it must’ve been disappointing. I am normally a huge Billy Crudup fan but I hated the goatee action here. Frankly Maggie Gyllenhaal’s character was the only one I didn’t want to give a good shaking to. And the ending is bizarrely happy and “everything falling into place” after the extremely negative tones of the rest of it. Occasional laughs or relationship insights, but for the most part not very good. Not horrible, but not really enjoyable either.

Kinda sappy but sweet, and Matthew Fox is pretty great in this. Some nice byplay between him and M. McConaughey. Not sure why it had such a mediocre box office performance/viewership; it’s not the greatest flick but certainly a decent effort.

I guess these would be the reasons I liked it and perhaps the same reasons you wouldn’t.

a) Sports, specifically football
b) Underdogs
c) Nostalgia
d) The classic hard knocks “rising from the ashes” story.
e) The classic “I want nothing to do with you” evolving into “Wow we’re teammates and/or roommates and we can actually get along” story.
f) Matthew Fox.
g) Students vs. the administration.
h) David Strathairn.

Not a great, movie, no. But enjoyable? Certainly. Melodramatic and predictable? Yes. Humorously macho? Indeed! (That’s a positive!) A very muscle-y bravado Beowulf? Yum.

Decent performances from Anthony Hopkins and John Malkovich, neither of whom I had any idea were in this. And very seductive work by Angelina Jolie; I particularly like the ending where I (at least) was fairly certain we were meant to think her spell was about to work again…

I am finding myself very annoyed with people recently who will ONLY go to “good” “arthouse” flicks. Sanctimonious much? Sometimes I WANT to see an action film. Sometimes I WANT to see mainstream movies. Oh, I’m so pedestrian! You are so much MORE of a person than me! [Make. Me. Puke.]

IMAX viewing is weird though. When they’re standing super still and the camera is super close to their face, then they look real. When there’s motion (of any kind) or they’re not right up front, they look like 3D cardboard cutouts. Like in “Stepmom” when Julia Roberts helps the kids make big blown-up cardboard cutouts of pictures of them? Yeah, exactly like that. So you’re always wondering if visually it was actually better in regular flat movie viewing. (And less queasy, surely.)

Have to laugh with Megan though, the whole “covering up the penis” shots were hilarious, there were soooo many of them, and honestly, just have him wear a loincloth and then we don’t have to keep putting people’s elbows, or helmets, or candles, in the way of “it”.