My Number 7 Out Of 20 Favorite Films

My number 7 of 20 favorite films...

Die Hard. The ultimate action film.
Yes a bit dated but it still works.



The Hero John McClane. Bruce Willis. He is believable. He has great comic timing. I wish he would have kept his shoes on!!!

I note often on this blog, action movies only work if there is a good bad guy/or woman. You can put Willis/Cruise/Scwarzenegger/ Eastwood/Bronson/Norris/Johnson... I could go on, in any action movie, and it still would not work without a good bad guy. This film had one of the best of all time...Hans Gruber!! Played perfectly evil and slimy by the late great Alan Rickman. How he did not get an Oscar nod is beyond me.

The wife. Holly Gennaro McClane played by Bonnie Bedilia, she is not a damsel in distress. She is the leader of the office group, trying to out smart Gruber.

The man needing redemption, Sgt Al Powell played by Reginald VelJohnson ..... heck he is smart enough to know the ingredients of Twinkies. Clearly he is the smartest man outside the building...he cuts through the bullcrap.

The Building! The Nakatomi Plaza. Think about what Director John McTiernan did in this film. He took a huuuge looking building...had us as viewers come into it...and he made it feel small...almost claustrophobic. Nakatomi Plaza is a character within itself here. This is why the other films fell short, we never felt the McClain was stuck in the other movies. (Plus he had no Rickman to go up against).

The small underdog. The little man. I am talking about Argyle (De'voreaux White)!! Enough said.

Some fun facts:
-They wanted Willis so bad they paid him 5 million dollars. Unheard of at the time.
-Much of the script was improvised. including the first meet up between McClane and Gruber.
-The first scene that Rickman filmed was when he made a jump off a ledge 3 feet high. He damaged his cartilage and used crutches the rest of the film when he was not on camera.
-Willis was shooting Moonlighting at the same time he was filming this film. He would shoot Moonlighting during the day and Die Hard at night. He was exhausted to a point they decided to pull back some of his scenes and give more scenes to Al Powell; Argyle; Ellis; and Richard Thornburg.


This was an easy one...and I am not really that much of an action film fan. This is now a classic.
My number 7 out of 20 favorite films...Die Hard.


Yippee--Ki---Yay...Mother$%^^


From the shadows as always thanks for your time.