BONUS The Friday Show - Die Hard on a Podcast
Guest:Mmm.
Marc:What is that, sarsaparilla?
Guest:Sioux City sarsaparilla?
Marc:Oh, wow.
Marc:No.
Marc:It's just water.
Guest:Oh, all right.
Guest:Sorry.
Guest:With a little WTF thing on it.
Marc:The outline made it look like a beer bottle, so I was like, oh, it must be a sarsaparilla.
Marc:That's a big beer bottle.
Guest:Wait a minute, what?
Guest:Why if it looks like a beer bottle, must it be sarsaparilla?
Guest:A, it's 1.30, you have a kid.
Guest:Well, it's fine, but there's like five things before sarsaparilla, I would think.
Marc:Also, sarsaparilla is just a delightful thing to say.
Guest:It's a nice thing to say, and to drink.
Marc:Yes, but it tickles the tongue, you know?
Guest:I always loved sarsaparilla when I was a kid.
Marc:Sarsaparilla gets so much play right now.
Marc:It's so fun.
Marc:I was partial to cream soda myself.
Guest:Oh, me too.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:But the sarsaparilla was rare.
Guest:Like you didn't get it very often.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You get it at like a restaurant.
Guest:Or when I grew up, you'd go into a general store.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:That's where they had them.
Marc:What a strange name for a store.
Guest:General.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Do you have a specialty?
Marc:Not really.
Marc:Just general stuff.
Marc:It's the general store.
Marc:Weren't very inventive or just specific back then.
Marc:It's just generally a good store.
Guest:But no.
Guest:No, no.
Guest:There's no value judgment either.
Guest:It's the general store.
Guest:Could be good or bad.
Guest:It doesn't matter.
Guest:It just generally has what you need.
Marc:Yeah, they weren't ad men.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, what's funny is there must have been other stores around the general store that were not general.
Guest:And so the general store was like, whoa, go to that one.
Guest:They're more likely to have it.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Also, I see an opening.
Marc:There's no general store here.
Yeah.
Marc:There's a specialty store for like hardware.
Guest:Oh, so many of those.
Guest:There's one for your horse's shoes.
Guest:There's one for a guy who makes tombstones.
Guest:But general.
Guest:I also like the idea that, you know, it's just a store for generals.
Marc:Right.
Marc:I'm sorry, are you a private?
Guest:No, there's another one.
Guest:It's a private store down the street.
Guest:why is this so stupid and funny uh all right well that was recorded at least so that's good yeah sure
Marc:Hey, Chris.
Marc:Genius.
Guest:How you doing?
Guest:Thank you, buddy.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:My reputation precedes me, I see.
Marc:You fit your whole big braid.
Guest:It gets around.
Guest:It was in the press.
Guest:Once it's in the press, that's how you're labeled forever now.
Marc:I heard the audio.
Marc:It was great to hear it in context.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Oh, we got the full context.
Guest:Can't slight us on that one.
Guest:That was, we are referring to the bonus episode.
Guest:If you haven't listened to it from this week, it was the full discussion between Mark and Cliff Nesteroff from the New York Public Library.
Guest:We talked about it on last week's Friday show.
Guest:Uh, no repercussions from that as expected, although even not specifically to Mark from anyone like in private or anything.
Guest:So, uh, I think his anxiety about that, uh, slightly misplaced, but, uh, who knows, maybe someday he'll walk around a corner and Bill Marl punch him in the face.
Marc:I know Taika Waititi, uh, was on your show.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, um, and for some reason, the internet has chosen to stop liking him.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Why?
Guest:I didn't, I can't, I couldn't even find a reason.
Guest:What's the reason?
Marc:I think it's the backlash to Marvel movies sucking and that his Marvel movie, they didn't like.
Guest:He made one good one.
Guest:That's a better track record than most.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there is just, people just don't like him anymore.
Marc:And like they dismissed this movie, which I personally haven't seen.
Marc:Did you see the movie?
Guest:No, I don't think it got much of a release.
Guest:So there goes that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But like, yeah, he apparently is getting dragged.
Marc:And like, I kind of don't understand anything that happens anymore.
Marc:Yeah, it's not real.
Marc:Yeah, it's all just made up and fake.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But I did appreciate that Mark watched some Marvel movies.
Marc:That was interesting to know.
Guest:Yeah, well, he'd always wanted to watch Thor on Lynn Shelton's recommendation.
Guest:She liked Thor Ragnarok a lot and had always recommended he watch it.
Guest:But he liked the other one, which I did not like.
Guest:He liked Love and Thunder, which, you know, it's funny.
Guest:It's like, I'm not a huge Marvel movie fan or anything.
Guest:And we watched that one.
Guest:my wife and I, and I was like, this is a mess.
Guest:Like I can't, there's nothing, I can't latch onto anything in this.
Guest:And Mark, who doesn't watch any of them, he like found it very moving and he like connected to that one emotionally, like with the, you know, Natalie Portman character, you know, dying of cancer or whatever.
Marc:And that's, that's what I latched onto myself.
Marc:I was like,
Marc:I was like, yeah, this is a real thing that can happen.
Marc:And like, you know, for people of a certain age, like cancer is going to be a thing.
Guest:Yes, right.
Marc:If it isn't already a thing and just like kind of frightening.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:So, I mean, I guess it's one of those things where it's like, if you're not coming to it with certain expectations, I think some of these things are totally, you know, enjoyable on their own merits, not as part of some like big Marvel conglomerate.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:But can I just say before we move on, Taika's dad built a tomb that was too short.
Marc:That's a crazy story.
Marc:Amazing.
Marc:How is that real?
Marc:And I hope he like took pictures of it because that is amazing.
Guest:I'm sure he did.
Guest:I mean, he talks about how it's like now in the garage or something with like the motorcycles.
Marc:Yeah, I'm not going to go in there with you.
Marc:Really fun episode.
Marc:If you didn't check it out, you should check it out because it's really great.
Guest:Yeah, that happened right before Thanksgiving, so maybe some people, you know, had their holidays get in the way, didn't hear it.
Guest:Yeah, go back and take a listen to that.
Guest:Have you had anything happen to you lately, Chris, that has blown your mind?
Marc:Well, I saw for the first time Spamalot on Broadway.
Guest:Oh, the revival.
Marc:Yeah, the revival.
Marc:That was great.
Marc:It didn't blow my mind, but it was very good.
Marc:But what did blow my mind was another thing that I saw, which was Godzilla minus one.
Marc:Oh, yeah, you
Guest:been telling me about this dude it's the best godzilla movie out there and like now this is if if anyone is familiar with the mark on movies series that we've been doing and mark talked to kit about the movie shin godzilla which is another uh toho produced japanese godzilla film that came out i don't know maybe four years ago five years ago
Guest:And they talked about it.
Guest:Both of them liked it very much.
Guest:But I have heard even better things about this Godzilla Minus One.
Guest:Also Japanese production.
Guest:But it looks like, you know, as good as any American blockbuster.
Guest:Perhaps better.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:It is like just leaps and bounds better than most American movie blockbusters.
Marc:And it is, has an emotional core to it.
Marc:The, the, I mean, the visuals, like we said, were great, but it uses the original music, which is really important.
Marc:And it's just, I was blown away.
Guest:I heard it's good and scary too.
Guest:Like there's like a lot of suspense and tension of this Godzilla.
Guest:It's not like a jokey or comedy.
Marc:Yeah, I saw someone online say like the first act is like Jurassic Park.
Marc:The second act is like Jaws.
Marc:And the third act is like Dunkirk.
Marc:And I got to say.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:Matches up really nice.
Marc:Like it is great.
Guest:Now I kind of want to see like Dunkirk and Jurassic Park together, like a mashup of that at the same time.
Marc:A TikTok and everything for sure.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So what has blown your mind?
Guest:Oh, well, I will tell you this story.
Guest:It was not about a movie or anything I've actually seen from an entertainment perspective.
Guest:But I don't know, man.
Guest:Something happened to me today that has changed my whole opinion on how I've been living my life.
Guest:I should have been doing something differently with it.
Marc:What?
Guest:And here's why.
Guest:I'll tell you why.
Guest:So I have a vacuum that was broken.
Guest:I need to get it either fixed or get a new one.
Guest:And we thankfully still live in a part of the country where, like, there are repair shops.
Guest:Like, I know some people don't have that luxury.
Guest:Like, you got to go to, like, Best Buy or something, right?
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:And they just...
Guest:there's somebody there who barely knows what you bought, let alone know how to fix it.
Guest:And, uh, you know, we, we still, there's like family run mom and pop vacuum repair stores.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And, uh, literally one that I've lived here for over 20 years.
Guest:I've never walked in this store once, but it's been there the whole time.
Guest:It's just there for when your vacuum breaks.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Which you've never had your vacuum break.
Guest:I'm
Guest:Or if I have, it's like, oh, it's a suction problem.
Guest:I can fix that.
Guest:Like I can fix like 10% of what's wrong with something.
Guest:Like, you know, it's like the toilet.
Guest:Oh, well, I need that, you know, floaty thing.
Guest:I'll go buy one of those and put that on.
Guest:But when it's like further down in the tank, I got to call the guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:So what type of vacuum are we talking?
Guest:We talking like a Dyson ball vacuum, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So the motor was started to smoke and the kill switch went off and, you know, I couldn't turn it on and it smelled a bad, you know, burning.
Guest:So I went, OK, that's no good.
Guest:So the deal with this vacuum repair shop is you take the vacuum to him.
Guest:He, you know, will look at it and then tell you whether, you know, what it would cost to give you an estimate, what it would cost to get it fixed.
Guest:Or, you know, maybe you want to buy a new one and he's got new ones there.
Guest:So I took it into this guy.
Guest:Again, never set foot in this place.
Guest:This nice guy named Mark.
Marc:How old is he?
Guest:Not too much older than me, I would think, or maybe even a little younger, roughly around my age.
Guest:And I was very polite, very attentive to what I was telling him and gave me the full details of how it would work.
Guest:And I just left the vacuum there with him.
Guest:And he said, I'll call you later today and let you know.
Guest:So I go home.
Guest:This was yesterday.
Guest:He calls me.
Guest:He says, look, I was able to figure out what was wrong.
Guest:It's not the best news.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:it basically would cost you, you'd have to replace the whole motor.
Guest:It's a pretty old vacuum.
Guest:You know, it's not super old, but it's old enough that, you know, it was going to cost like more than half of what a brand new vacuum would cost just to fix it.
Guest:So I said, I'll tell you what, can you, if I just, you know, go with you, can you give me a deal on a new vacuum?
Guest:Sure.
Guest:So he does.
Guest:We, uh, we get, so I say, let's just, let me just get a new one.
Guest:I'll buy it from you.
Guest:And we, uh,
Guest:We exchanged the information over the phone.
Guest:I bought it on the spot, on that phone call, and said, can I come by and pick it up tomorrow?
Guest:He said, yeah, sure.
Guest:I might not be here, but someone will be in the store, and your information, I'll take it down.
Guest:Just give them your name.
Guest:They'll know what you bought.
Guest:I said, okay, sounds great.
Guest:Everything's very normal.
Guest:So I go there today, walk into the same store.
Guest:I see the guy, he's standing in the back with a vacuum.
Guest:Vacuum's on.
Guest:He's like inspecting it or fixing something on it.
Guest:Not your vacuum, someone else's vacuum.
Guest:Someone else, some other vacuum.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:I walk in.
Guest:I see him.
Guest:I wave.
Guest:He gives me a little wave back.
Guest:He says, hang on a second.
Guest:And he tinkers around a little bit.
Guest:I'm walking a little closer toward him.
Guest:And he turns the vacuum off, turns around and looks at me.
Guest:He says, hey, can I help you?
Guest:And I'm like, yeah, I had the vacuum, the Dyson Total Clean.
Guest:He's like, oh, would you like to buy one?
Guest:What's happening?
Guest:I was like, no, I bought it yesterday, remember?
Guest:And he's like, oh, I'm sorry, I wasn't here yesterday.
Guest:That was my brother.
Guest:No.
Guest:Now, listen, I'm not telling some crazy story.
Guest:Twins exist.
Guest:We all know this, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:I'm sure we've all met plenty of twins.
Guest:I have never in my life seen identical twins that were this identical.
Guest:I've known identical twins before.
Guest:You can always kind of tell, right?
Guest:Like this was the exact double of the man I met yesterday.
Guest:Exact double.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:And it's, oh, okay, your brother.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Yeah, no, I bought a thing.
Guest:He goes over, he gets it for me.
Guest:And we go through the transaction.
Guest:I'm staring at this guy.
Guest:There is no inch of daylight between these two brothers.
Guest:And so then I'm starting to think, is this really a brother?
Yeah.
Marc:Is this just like memento guy?
Guest:Or this is how he fucks with people.
Guest:And that's what I'm saying.
Guest:I realized I've made a mistake my whole life because why wouldn't you just do this?
Guest:You could do this with anybody.
Guest:I could do this.
Guest:I could have done this with you the second day I met you.
Guest:Oh, no, I'm his brother.
Guest:We're twins.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:why not you could just you like more people should lie about being twins is my whole point it it would it would a probably solve many problems that you have but also be create total chaos and and in a completely non-cost measure like you could just do it and no one would ever know i mean maybe they would figure it out eventually but i i mean what a great what a great way to get like
Guest:I'm looking about thinking about things.
Guest:How do you inject some energy into life?
Guest:What's a, what's some ways to like spice up your day to day, man, just pretend to be a twin.
Marc:It would work so well.
Marc:But also like this guy works at the same place.
Marc:I'm guessing it's a family run organization.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's called like Brooks Brooks.
Guest:vacuums or something.
Guest:Like, that's the family name or whatever.
Marc:Do they have, like, a uniform that they're also wearing?
Marc:Because, like, that... Nope.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:Nope.
Guest:This guy was indifferent.
Guest:I mean, that was the only difference.
Guest:His clothes were not identical.
Guest:Which made it even more suspect.
Guest:Like, if he's wearing the same clothes, I'd be like, oh, you guys are just, you know, that type of twin.
Guest:Double mint.
Guest:Yeah, right.
Guest:So yeah, I've never seen it so precise.
Guest:It was amazing.
Marc:That is impressive.
Marc:If I went in there with you, I would be like, bullshit.
Marc:Give me your phone.
Marc:Let me see a photo of you two at Christmas or Thanksgiving because I'm not buying it for a second.
Guest:Is Don in the back?
Guest:Get Don out here.
Guest:Oh man.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Now I'm not, but like, to be honest, it was the best possible.
Guest:Like, I mean, this is a store that dealt with me, you know, completely above board.
Guest:They, you know, were fully transparent and upfront with me that it seems like a generational store here in Brooklyn.
Guest:They did nothing but good business with me.
Guest:And I'm more interested about going back there and being a repeat customer.
Guest:Cause I want to find both twins there at the same time.
Guest:Like it was the greatest sales pitch for going to this vacuum store that there could ever be.
Guest:Like the two most identical twins you've ever seen in your life are here and see if you ever spot them at the same time.
Guest:Because I kind of feel like if I do, it's like the matrix when they see the cat twice, like I'll be like, Oh, it's fucked up.
Marc:but also I love that this place is above board doing the right thing and you want to fuck with it you want to like get some no I want to know their magic I want to know how they did it but you want to have some chaos in your life by like telling people like pumping you're pumping your gas like oh Brendan like oh no that's my brother like just like create yeah I just want to go to them and be like teach me what you what you know please teach me everything
Marc:Oh, identical twins.
Marc:I don't think I've ever encountered identical twins.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I've had so many in my life from time to time, whether it was kids I went to school with or people in the neighborhood.
Guest:I've known a lot of twins.
Guest:And yeah, it's never that hard to pick out which one is which.
Guest:If you just were cursorily looking, like, oh, yeah, I'm not exactly sure.
Guest:But if you're...
Guest:Really looking at it, you know.
Guest:There's a great Ray Romano joke about where he is when his kids were little and he has twins.
Guest:And he was like, you know, they were babies.
Guest:And he was like, man, I worried about this of having twins because, you know, there's nothing worse than ugly twins.
Yeah.
Guest:he's like he's like i just don't want my kids to grow up and if they're ugly man it's just so mean that i did this to them and they're twins because like you know if you see an ugly person you might just like let that pass but if it's twins and you see it again you're like oh man i wasn't i wasn't gonna say anything but then i saw it again
Guest:Definitely not the case with these guys at Brooks Vacuum Repair.
Guest:If you're ever in Brooklyn, New York, and you need a vacuum or sewing machine repaired, they do that too.
Marc:Or if you just want to stare at some twins, apparently.
Guest:Yeah, hey, it's worth your dollar, I guess.
Guest:they didn't do that like a peep booth but it's like that's a dollar cash yeah right they have this they have this like you know forlorn look on their face okay yeah what do you want me to do you want me to jiggle no you can just stand there it's fine just kind of wanted to see you
Marc:Could you both hammer and screwdriver something at the same time?
Marc:It'd be fascinating.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Now, speaking of twins, question for you.
Guest:There's two brothers in Die Hard, right?
Guest:What are their names?
Guest:I'm blanking on them right now.
Guest:Oh, okay.
Marc:It's not Hans, obviously.
Guest:Yeah, Carl.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Carl, and I forget the one who gets thrown down the stairs, but the other brother, right?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:Now, I couldn't tell.
Guest:I was watching it again this time.
Guest:Are they supposed to be twins?
Guest:They're very close in age, but I don't think they're supposed to be twins.
Marc:No, because they look, I mean, one's a nerd, right?
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:I mean, that's how they're introduced.
Marc:He's like nerdily putting some wires together.
Guest:He cuts the wires, right?
Marc:Yeah, he's got to clip the wires.
Marc:Right, but then Carl comes in with a chainsaw.
Marc:Yeah, he's the maniac.
Marc:Yeah, Tony, by the way, is the other guy's name.
Marc:Tony?
Marc:Yeah.
What?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:I would have went with Anthony, honestly.
Marc:That's not a Tony, but apparently.
Guest:That guy is not a Tony ever, like ever in his life.
Guest:Anton go with Anton Anton would work fine Carl and Anton oh you know what so it actually says here Tony's full name is likely Anton which is amazing so Anton and Carl and if you're wondering who exactly I'm talking about in terms of Die Hard he's the one that gets the message put on his corpse now I have a machine gun ho ho ho
Marc:Yep.
Marc:I got to say, that's when I knew I was in for a good time with Die Hard.
Marc:I was like, oh yeah, this guy, not only did he put that message in there, but he also did the thing with the elevator where he's spying on them.
Guest:He's on the elevator while it's happening.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, great, great.
Guest:Well, Die Hard is in my head because I watched it this past week.
Guest:We've had this conversation in many years past about this whole idea of Die Hard being a Christmas movie.
Guest:And I am done with that conversation because here's the real reason.
Guest:It is a Christmas movie now, whatever you think about it.
Guest:And I, in the past, had argued against it being called a Christmas movie.
Guest:Too bad, too late.
Guest:It's a Christmas movie now because it's now on at Christmas all the time.
Guest:And people have made it part of their Christmas tradition.
Guest:I mean, every year it's at the movie theater by my house.
Guest:That's where I went to see it.
Guest:It's a, it's a annual tradition for people.
Guest:And that's the, that's the game ball game.
Guest:Now people watch it at Christmas.
Guest:It could be any movie.
Guest:If you watching it at Christmas every year, it's now a Christmas movie.
Guest:And yeah,
Guest:I have to think, like, what was initially my pushback, there's a whole subgenre of movies, particularly action movies, that take place at Christmas, but were not, like, released at Christmastime, didn't have anything to do with Christmas in the marketing.
Guest:Most of them are the Shane Black movies, right?
Guest:Like, every one of his scripts has Christmas in it somewhere.
Guest:It's like his trademark.
Guest:Mm-hmm.
Guest:And so watching Die Hard, I was like, why did it happen for this movie and not others?
Guest:Like, I know there's plenty of people out there who have like this as like a cheeky thing where they watch like non-traditional Christmas movies.
Guest:We have a friend named Matt who has a whole list of like, oh, it's Christmas time, time to watch The Conversation because
Guest:there's like a scene with like a christmas wreath in it or uh the french connection at the beginning when popeye doyle's dressed up as the santa claus at the uh salvation army bucket right right but why did die hard become the movie that lasted right that is now every christmas people are watching it it's getting really released in the theaters right i think it's coming out this weekend or something at amc you can watch it uh today and uh tomorrow
Guest:It would probably be a better version of it than I saw, which was in shitty 35 millimeter as always.
Marc:Can we fucking stop with this shit?
Marc:I cannot believe it.
Marc:I'm going to see it in AMC and it's going to look fucking great.
Marc:It's going to be a digital print, guys.
Marc:Oh, I can't stand these 35 millimeters.
Guest:Look, I get the idea of wanting to preserve film tradition and film history.
Guest:You know what you have to do then?
Guest:You have to have someone who takes care of these things and is a curator.
Guest:You cannot just be a movie theater and rely on a studio, particularly Disney at this point in time, which is where diehard's coming from, to like have cared about and taken care of these prints.
Guest:They're just going to send you crap.
Guest:And then it looks like crap.
Guest:And meanwhile, I'm like, I could have been watching this at home on like 4K or whatever.
Guest:Anyway, completely separate story.
Guest:What I got to thinking watching Die Hard, and man, it delivers every time you watch it, right?
Guest:And that is why, right?
Guest:That is why it became the one.
Guest:Because it is so rewatchable, right?
Guest:Now, like, people love Lethal Weapon.
Guest:People love The Last Boy Scout.
Guest:Batman Returns.
Guest:That's another one with Christmas in it.
Guest:But nobody is clamoring to show them every year.
Guest:There's not like I bought you as a gag gift once a children's book that was like Die Hard for Christmas.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was done in the style of like The Grinch or something.
Guest:It was an illustrated book.
Guest:There's nobody doing that with those other things.
Guest:Die Hard has become the one.
Guest:Why?
Guest:I feel like it's the rewatchability of it, and it's the fact that, like I said, it always delivers.
Guest:And what is it that delivers with this movie?
Guest:It is the formula.
Guest:The formula that has become known as die hard on a blank, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, after this movie, this took off as a script format that you could...
Guest:fill anything in and sell it as an action movie very easily and it's very very simple this formula the bad guys take over something and they don't know that there is one or more heroes who will foil their plans
Guest:That's it.
Guest:That's all.
Guest:And then put it in a location.
Guest:Could be any location.
Guest:Hence the Die Hard on a blank.
Guest:And it just so happens that this Die Hard on a blank, which is the original Die Hard, Die Hard in a skyscraper, right?
Guest:Has Christmas.
Guest:It's a Christmas party.
Guest:And so it eventually started getting shown at Christmas because of that, again, that like, you know, cheeky, subversive nature of people who want to watch like, you know, Silent Night, Deadly Night or something or, you know, but...
Guest:do something off the beaten path of a Christmas movie, but then this is so good, you just wind up watching it every year.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And so I started looking into this formula, this diehard on a blank formula.
Guest:And...
Guest:It's really crazy how many of these films, even the ones that aren't that good, are so memorable.
Guest:And although they might not be set at Christmas, and although people might not be clamoring to rewatch them annually, they all have their fans.
Guest:these every single one of these die hard on a blank movies has a fan base of some nature and you just go through you go through the list on the basis of what the the on a blank is right die hard on a plane well the first big one of those was passenger 57 right that's a great one die hard on a plane i i
Guest:I can't even tell you the last time I saw it.
Guest:I just have a lot of fun memories of that movie.
Guest:And Wesley Snipes being like, what do they say?
Guest:He says, do you play roulette?
Guest:And the bad guy says, on occasion, always bet on black.
Guest:And that was their yippee-ki-yay motherfucker moment in that movie.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:These formulas are so easily refillable.
Guest:In fact, Die Hard 2 was not just die hard on a plane.
Guest:It was die hard for the whole airport.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Die Harder.
Guest:Die Harder.
Guest:That was the subtitle.
Guest:Great subtitle of that movie.
Guest:Speaking of planes, Con Air.
Marc:Die Hard on a prison plane.
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And again, just like with Die Hard, great cast.
Marc:Great villains in that movie.
Marc:And that sometimes gets lost.
Marc:Like, you're talking about, well, why are these movies, like, why is Die Hard so good?
Marc:It's because the cast is exceptional.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:Well, also, so there's bad guys, right?
Guest:And there's violence and people think like, that's not Christmassy or whatever.
Guest:And if you want to watch like a gore fest or whatever, there's all those Christmas horror movies you could watch and that.
Guest:But Die Hard has a villain who is arguably the most fun part of the movie, right?
Guest:He's enjoyable.
Guest:He's charismatic.
Guest:You're happy every time he's around.
Guest:He's killing people and he's a bad guy, but he's...
Guest:he's a joy and the joy of his performance comes through.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so I, I think that's a huge part of why people will go back to this movie and be okay with going back to it because Rickman is so fun.
Guest:He, he is like a Christmas in himself.
Guest:Like it's Hans Gruber.
Guest:He's so great.
Guest:I love him.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And he's so versatile.
Marc:I think this is his first movie he's ever been in.
Marc:It legit is his first movie.
Marc:That's so crazy.
Marc:That's insane.
Marc:And he is not only charismatic as a villain, he can also turn it on his American accent when he's talking to John.
Marc:Yeah, Bill Clay.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, he is a tour de force in this movie.
Guest:Yeah, apparently they saw him in Dangerous Liaisons on stage, I believe in London.
Guest:It might have made the transition to Broadway, but I know it was Dangerous Liaisons on stage.
Guest:And yeah, the producers of this were like, well, that's the guy.
Guest:He's going to play Hans Gruber.
Marc:What sets Die Hard apart from all of these, even Con Air, even Passenger 57, is...
Marc:For me, when I watched it, because I watched it yesterday, it is the exposition dumps.
Marc:So well done.
Marc:So masterfully done.
Marc:First of all, your first shot is of Bruce Willis being nervous about flying.
Marc:So already this guy's vulnerable.
Marc:I fucking love that.
Marc:And then you find out he's a cop.
Marc:And obviously, it's just conversation.
Marc:And then there's a great scene at the front.
Marc:Oh, actually, before that, you meet Argyle.
Marc:And him and Argyle are just talking.
Marc:And it's the best exposition I've ever seen in the movie.
Guest:To get everything out there about his wife and about why he's out there.
Guest:But wait, you skipped something on the plane.
Guest:What's that?
Guest:Because he's nervous, the guy next to him tells him to make fists with his feet.
Guest:nope that's how you still do yourself down yes your favorite thing to do and you say it works just like john mcclain figures out it works but this is integral to the plot yes right he then does this makes fists with his feet on the carpet in the nakatomi tower when the terrorists come in yeah and so i mean we're calling them terrorists but they're really just robbers right like right thieves
Guest:It's him having to be barefoot for the whole movie is a huge reason that John McClane is this relatable superhero.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And I mean, that's just the other thing.
Marc:He's not an actual superhero.
Marc:He is this normal looking guy.
Marc:He's balding.
Marc:He's wearing like a, you know, a tank top.
Marc:He is just a normal dude.
Marc:Like he's not, he's not bulletproof yet anyway.
Marc:But, but besides all that,
Marc:Like the exposition continues with in a very organic way where he's talking to the front desk guy and the front desk is like, oh, use the computer.
Marc:And then like he has to like type in Holly's like maiden name and he finds out that, oh, his wife's not using his name.
Marc:OK, great.
Marc:By the way.
Marc:I fucking love this scene.
Marc:I don't know if I've ever seen it.
Marc:I don't know if we've talked about Die Hard before.
Marc:We have a little briefly just talking about villains, I think.
Marc:But go ahead.
Marc:So let me just tell you.
Marc:I love this scene of John talking to the guy and plugging in his wife's name because John eventually just says, oh, 30th floor.
Marc:And the guard's like, oh, yeah, they're the only ones left in the building.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah, why didn't you tell me that in the first place, you dick?
Marc:Right.
Marc:It's like you made me type into this computer.
Marc:For what reason, motherfucker?
Marc:You knew there's literally one group of people in here.
Marc:Who do you think I'm coming to see then?
Marc:But you know what?
Marc:Exposition.
Marc:Great.
Marc:We now know there's no one else in this building, right?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's the point of that scene.
Guest:But man.
Guest:That's the point.
Guest:But also, like you said, it covers the ground that his wife's not using his name anymore.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:It's all this... And, you know, this whole time, the movie is very mild.
Guest:Very, like, even temperament.
Guest:There's nothing in it that's getting you, like...
Guest:tense or nervous which seems to go against the nature of these kind of movies you think with these type of movies they're ratcheting up tension or something no it's like a domestic drama at best yes it's not even that dramatic and this is like for like 20 minutes mm-hmm
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And at the 20 minute mark is when we get introduced to Hans Gruber.
Marc:And can I just say, it's like basic Hollywood screenplay where you meet the love interest or you meet the villain.
Marc:And, you know, I just watched like the original Godzilla and Godzilla shows up at the 20 minute mark in that movie.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:And so does Hans Gruber and his like international merry men, because this group is, by the way, like fascinating.
Marc:There's like Germans, there's a Chinese or Asian people, there's a black guy, like the UN of bad guys, the League of Nations.
Marc:Yes, yes.
Marc:It's the League of Nations of bank robbers, which is just amazing.
Guest:Well, also, like, there's guys that I, even at the time watching this when I was younger, I knew them from other things because they were stuntmen, right?
Guest:Like that guy, Al Leung.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He's...
Guest:always a stunt guy, right?
Guest:Like he's always taking spills over something.
Marc:He's the guy who grabs the crunch bar, right?
Marc:That's right.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Always love that guy.
Marc:That was like one of my favorite, favorite parts.
Marc:Oh, man.
Guest:Well, I'll say though, too, aside from just the, you know, literacy of the screenplay around like exposition, the...
Guest:The thing that I always marvel at with this movie is that, okay, the entirety of the action has to take place in this skyscraper.
Guest:So you're really talking about individual floors that go up to 30, whatever, and you have to kind of mentally mark off where people are at any given time.
Guest:And this movie is so good at letting you know where they are.
Guest:There is that moment where he's being chased around Bruce Willis's and he pops through a stairwell and there's like a, a little workstation there in the stairwell.
Guest:And one of the things that is,
Guest:in part of the set design of this little workstation of whatever person is there, guy working as opposed to like, you know, I don't know, check the electrical equipment or something.
Guest:There's a centerfold, right?
Guest:Playboy centerfold catches your attention right away, but he just runs past it.
Guest:You know, he's trying to escape from these guys.
Guest:He goes up some stairs that shooting at him.
Guest:He runs downstairs again.
Guest:And at one point he goes back through and he sees the centerfold.
Guest:He kisses his hand and,
Guest:And then, you know, presses it on the centerfold.
Guest:Like, I got out of that.
Guest:I'm alive.
Guest:And now, you know, OK, he's going back to where he was before.
Guest:Very, very clearly, time and space are present in this movie that it didn't have to be.
Guest:And that a lot of movies that come afterwards have not done that.
Guest:Right.
Marc:They don't put in that.
Marc:They kind of forget that part.
Marc:They just kind of like, oh, well, we just need this guy to show up and bad guys happen.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They forget about the nuance.
Marc:There's nuance here.
Marc:And that's why this movie is getting watched every year and those movies aren't.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:I mean, look, it's not only the naked ladies.
Marc:It's also like, OK, 32nd floor computers, 31st floor is abandoned.
Marc:Like there's just a spatial awareness to this movie.
Marc:That is just amazing.
Marc:And also, I'm watching this movie for the first time this year, and I was like, oh, you know what this is?
Marc:This is the blueprint for modern video games.
Marc:Oh, sure.
Marc:And just hear me out.
Marc:Like, something happens, and you don't have a lot of weapons, and then you have to obtain them as the game goes on.
Marc:And, you know, he gets a lighter, cigarettes, a machine gun, you know, shoes that don't fit.
Marc:And then you expand your map.
Marc:And you're on the 33rd floor.
Marc:And then, you know, like I've played this video game like a million times, be it Zelda or fucking Spider-Man 2.
Marc:You know, it's the same premise and it works so great.
Marc:I love that.
Guest:Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
Guest:It's also, you know, the idea that he's got to take these guys down one at a time, right?
Guest:There's not ever going to be a point where he can, like, you know, burst into a room and knock out 10 bad guys at once.
Guest:So it's the incremental mission that you also get in a game, right?
Marc:It's the mid-tier boss, right?
Marc:Right.
Marc:You have to keep beating the mid tier bosses until you get to the main boss.
Marc:Like it is it's a brilliant construction.
Marc:And it's often imitated for a good reason because it is fantastic.
Guest:Well, see, and that's the thing.
Guest:The thing about imitating it, it's like the formula is there.
Guest:So you can just fill it in.
Guest:And it doesn't mean these movies are going to be as good when they're imitating it.
Guest:But you can get to a point where at least it delivers on the formula basics.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Like, you know, I mentioned a couple of months ago, I went to see the movie Cliffhanger and it has its problems in that.
Guest:But the stuff that's enjoyable about it is the diehard nature of it.
Guest:right like oh here now he's got to knock off each of these bad guys one at a time on the side of this mountain like that's that's what works die hard on a mountain uh that's it die hard on a mountain uh well you know we will get to what i think are the ones that are comparable to die hard there's none that are going to be as good obviously but i have a few that i think are you know right up there in the top tier of it but did you take anything away from it that
Guest:This time that you haven't in the many other times you've watched it.
Marc:Yes, because I knew you wanted to talk about it.
Marc:So I in that lens, I kind of you kind of forget like Die Hard as a movie construct.
Marc:It's like this thing.
Marc:It's this apparatus that has all this, you know, other stuff built on top of it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But it's the movie itself itself.
Marc:is just good.
Marc:It's a good-ass movie.
Marc:It has so many character beats.
Marc:Everyone is playing their part so amazingly.
Marc:Like, Ellis.
Marc:Ellis is, like, the best fucking, like, coked-up shithead from the 80s, and he is pitch-perfect.
Marc:Like, I love his performance.
Marc:I love everything.
Marc:Hans, Bubi,
Marc:i'm your white knight i mean he's he's just throwing a hundred the entire time i love and everybody gets their little moments like that they get they get to take the stage even like uh you know mr takagi he's got his got his scene you know by the way by the way hans has done all this research on mr takagi right like yeah never bothered to look up what he looks like no no photos of this guy just walking around like i i don't buy that for a second but he
Guest:He's also saying it to guys who are clearly not Asian, right?
Guest:Like he's like, oh, this is where you went to school.
Guest:This is your family.
Guest:These are your children's names.
Guest:And he's just like talking to some like Californian white dude.
Guest:I'm like, pretty sure that's not Mr. Takagi.
Guest:You can move along.
Marc:But also, I mean, Hans has the best fucking lines.
Marc:When he's looking at all these models and he's like, oh, and when Alexander saw his blah, blah, blah.
Guest:He had no more worlds to conquer.
Marc:Yes, yeah.
Marc:And then he's like, benefits of a classical education.
Marc:I mean, the best line delivery.
Guest:Nice suit.
Guest:I have two myself.
Yeah.
Guest:I bought it at the same place where Arafat shops.
Marc:So it's such a well-done, perfect movie.
Marc:That's the thing that gets lost, is that the movie is great.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:You really feel for all this.
Marc:You feel for Rennerjold.
Marc:I think I'm butchering his name, but you feel for the... Oh, who, Al?
Marc:Al?
Marc:Al, Mike, Al, who's driving this car?
Marc:Stevie Wonder?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, like, Al is great.
Guest:I mean, just— Well, we've talked about this before, how Al, the cop, and just in general, the subplot and the friendship between him and Bruce Willis is so good, they made a sitcom out of this.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes.
Guest:Like Family Matters is just literally like Al's family.
Guest:Like he's he's just a cop who is, you know, in living in the suburbs.
Guest:And this is just what happens to him on days when there isn't a siege of a industrial complex.
Marc:Right.
Marc:also uh i i watching it this time i'm i'm reminded that oh yeah al killed or shot a kid right yes and that's why he's like just on uh you know in his car and not like right desk duty yeah we don't know if he killed the kid but he says i shot a kid so you know that you know that it wasn't good no matter what he thought a kid with a toy gun was a was a perp and he shot him
Marc:And then at the end of the movie, he ends up shooting Carl.
Marc:Yeah, it's very heartwarming.
Guest:He regained his urge to kill.
Marc:And then the limo breaks through and he's ready.
Marc:He's going to kill everybody.
Marc:He is ready.
Marc:He has a hair trigger.
Marc:Like he's just going to blow everyone down.
Guest:It's like Popeye with spinach.
Guest:Like he's just all of a sudden is like...
Marc:he's a killing machine yeah we should get the gun out of al's uh holster please yeah right or maybe like just turn the switch back off with poor al right oh oh no he was set to evil deactivate his bloodlust
Marc:I also love how horrible the LAPD is.
Marc:I love how inept they were, except for Al, where the guy from The Breakfast Club, who is, again, perfect in this movie.
Marc:I know Roger Ebert hates this guy.
Guest:He hated this character and performance enough to give the entire movie a bad review.
Marc:That's awesome.
Marc:Unbelievable.
Guest:That's one of the great examples of a review of a film and of a perception of a film where I completely understand it and I just don't agree.
Guest:Completely understand.
Guest:understand i would i have no quarrel with anyone who's like i can't stand how bad and dumb that cop is and how he does every single thing wrong and does everything that the plot requires him to do to be wrong at every step of the way but yeah no argument still like it
Guest:Like that's it.
Guest:There's just, it's a perfect example of that.
Guest:That doesn't happen a lot of times.
Guest:Like usually there's something where you're like, nah, I don't know.
Guest:I think you're wrong about this.
Guest:I think you can, you know, look at it at a different lens.
Guest:Nope.
Guest:It's totally right that he is a construction of the screenplay.
Guest:He is there just to facilitate things so that they keep happening in a way that lets the movie continue going.
Guest:And I'm fine with that.
Guest:Do you know why I'm fine with that?
Guest:Cause I don't want the movie to end.
Guest:I like that there's something happening that keeps it going that way.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:There's the FBI agents who.
Guest:Johnson and Johnson.
Marc:No relation.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They are fantastic together.
Marc:I fucking love their seeds.
Marc:They're so cocky.
Marc:So just like literal swinging dicks.
Marc:And just throwing their weight around, literally falling into the bad guy's plan of shutting down the power, which then releases the vault.
Marc:Which, by the way, Mr. Takagi, why does this guy have $865 million in bonds?
Guest:Yeah, I got to imagine Takagi was a criminal, right?
Guest:The whole Nakatomi Corporation was totally crooked.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So they were probably stealing from the right place.
Marc:Also, yeah, I mean, he's also okay with Ellis doing coke bumps in Holly's office.
Guest:Yeah, the 80s were different.
Guest:They were very permissible.
Yeah.
Marc:But you know what no one ever did?
Marc:No one ever did the sequel where Mr. Takagi's children go out and go for revenge for Hans' family.
Guest:No, but in fact, Die Hard 3, it's like Hans Gruber's brother is the bad guy.
Guest:Although, again, he's not there for revenge.
Guest:He's there for like...
Guest:A heist, yeah.
Guest:Which is also a great thing about Die Hard is that, you know, all of what you think are possible political subtexts of the film are upended in the fact that, like, this guy didn't care about any of that stuff.
Guest:He's just there to make money and go live on a Caribbean island, right?
Guest:And...
Marc:I mean, that is hilarious.
Marc:He's like, you know, this time next week, we'll be on an island sucking pina coladas and we'll be making 2%.
Marc:Like, what?
Marc:Is he going to, like, take these bonds into a bank somewhere?
Guest:I think so.
Guest:They're going to fence them to some type of way to get interest.
Guest:it's just so ridiculous but the funny thing is the only point in the movie and you mentioned it already where like there's some type of social commentary or cultural commentary that comes through is the fbi agents like as you said they do everything wrong like there there is definitely like a feel of like reagan 80s here where they're like
Guest:Oh, the government authority is like a joke.
Guest:Like you just we're going to we're going to use them, manipulate them, and then they're going to blow up their helicopter because they stink.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:They're definitely you can feel that for sure.
Guest:Well, I, you know, I was thinking about it.
Guest:I was trying to come up with, are there ones that are as good?
Guest:And there are, but I did want to just, in case you have anything to say about any of these, run through some of the other kind of noteworthy ones, the Die Hard Annas.
Guest:There's Toy Soldiers, which is Die Hard at a prep school.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:There's Sudden Impact, which is Die Hard at a sports stadium.
Guest:I'd say the one thing about the Sudden Impact and also Jean-Claude Van Damme is just always like a lower tier action hero.
Guest:But but also that one's particularly grisly.
Guest:Like the violence in that is not nice or fun.
Marc:No, it's nothing fun about it.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Same with those Olympus movies, right?
Guest:Olympus has fallen and all that.
Guest:But, okay, so now we get into the area of ones, though, that I think are pretty good.
Guest:Okay.
Guest:What do you got?
Guest:They are valid successors to the Die Hard Anna format.
Guest:There is Die Hard in Alcatraz.
Okay.
Marc:Yeah, baby.
Marc:Now, now, now you're talking my language.
Marc:The Rock is the Die Hard ripoff that we deserve.
Marc:Like it is, it is so good.
Guest:Well, also the great thing about this is everything you talked about with Die Hard about, you know, the, how they take pains to be realistic about things, to get through, you know, exposition in a very smart way.
Guest:The rock is the opposite.
Guest:Like it's literally the exposition is the guy goes to a cemetery and the cemetery says like the woman's name and underneath it says his wife on her tombstone.
Marc:That's how my wife's tombstone is going to read.
Marc:That's funny.
Guest:we already got it made up it's great using as a coffee table there's also a chase where they're chasing through the streets of san francisco and an obstacle that's in their way is a cable car and the cable car explodes up into the sky like it does not have a motor it's a cable car
Marc:Yep.
Marc:That's in the Hummer chase scene.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Which is beloved in this household.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, so yes, The Rock is a worthy successor, as is, I would say, Die Hard on a Boat Under Siege.
Marc:Oh, baby.
Marc:I mean, that's a battleship, right?
Guest:Yes, yes.
Guest:There's other diehards on a boat.
Guest:Speed two, right, right.
Guest:But yes, diehard on any kind of floating vessel, I think under siege is your high watermark, pun intended.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:It also has a sequel that's a diehard on a diehard on a train under siege to not as good as yes.
Guest:And the reason that diehard on a boat under siege is so good is in a way what we were talking about with diehard the villains.
Guest:Tommy Lee Jones is great.
Guest:Gary Busey is great.
Guest:They knew they had this terrible actor at the center, Steven Seagal, and they just needed to surround him with these amazing character actors.
Guest:And they're so good in it.
Guest:And it's fun.
Guest:It's directed, as we mentioned, when we did our Fugitive talk, directed by Andrew Davis, who made The Fugitive.
Guest:It's the reason why he got the gig making The Fugitive was because Under Siege was so surprisingly good.
Guest:That's a worthy one in my estimation.
Marc:And you'll see a theme here because The Rock has, you know, what's that actor's name from Apollo 13?
Guest:Ed Harris.
Marc:Yeah, he has Ed Harris as the villain.
Marc:Great actor.
Guest:He's great.
Guest:But also that guy, oh, what the fuck is his name?
Guest:Oh, John Spencer?
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, John Spencer's one of the cops, but I'm talking about the bad guy.
Guest:The guy is, I think his name is David Morse.
Guest:You know, you've seen him in a million things.
Guest:He was on St.
Guest:Elsewhere when I was a kid.
Guest:And he's in 12 Monkeys.
Guest:But just another great character actor who can like hold the screen.
Guest:And you're like, oh, this guy, you know, I'm glad he's here.
Guest:You know, taking this journey with him.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, I see him.
Marc:Yes, he's a great, great villain.
Marc:Yeah, for sure.
Guest:And Tony Todd, the candy man, he's also one of the bad guys in the prison.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:He's the rocket man.
Guest:He's the guy that gets shot off the building in a rocket.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You need a great cast.
Marc:Like that's the, like you can't miss on a, the villain.
Marc:Cause like passenger 57, who's the villain in that?
Guest:Yeah, no, I couldn't tell you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's why it doesn't make like the all time list because it doesn't have the, the, all the ingredients.
Yeah.
Guest:Well, here's one that does.
Guest:And the cast is good and, you know, it hits all these things.
Guest:It is also a Christmas movie.
Guest:In fact, it is specifically a Christmas movie.
Guest:It's not heralded a Christmas movie the way Die Hard was.
Guest:This was made for Christmas.
Guest:And this is Die Hard with a Kid.
Guest:Home Alone.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Abso-fucking-lutely.
Marc:This is Die Hard with a Kid, and it works so great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a perfect use of the formula.
Guest:In fact, it's crazy that it wasn't done more.
Guest:I mean, I know there were then Home Alone knockoffs, right?
Guest:Right.
Guest:But there weren't like a baby's day out or things like that where they thought the idea was put these kids in crazy situations.
Guest:And it's not even that.
Guest:It's that you have to ape the die hard formula with the kid and watch a kid have ingenuity and figure out how am I going to lay these traps and whatever.
Guest:How am I going to survive these bad guys?
Guest:It's it's yeah, that's a that's a great one.
Guest:And, you know, I'm surprised people don't bring it up more.
Guest:I think probably because it's just so close to be it's just a Christmas movie.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's an actual Christmas movie as opposed to a diehard type of Christmas movie.
Marc:And and the wet bandits take over the town.
Marc:Basically, they are robbing each house.
Marc:So, yes, it totally works.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Instead of floors, it's just different houses.
Guest:Well, I will now end my list here with what I think is the best possible version of the Die Hard Anna formula.
Marc:You better say the one I'm thinking of, so go ahead.
Guest:It is Die Hard Anna bus.
Guest:Whoa.
Guest:It is speed.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Speed is great because here's the tricky thing about speed.
Guest:Speed is diehard on a bus because that's where the speed portion comes from.
Guest:And it's this bus that this one hero has to infiltrate and he figures out all the ways to make them survive, right?
Guest:But sneaky, sneaky thing about speed is you get...
Guest:two backdoor Die Hard movies in Speed.
Guest:You get Die Hard on an elevator and Die Hard on a subway.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:In the bookends of that film.
Guest:It's a threefer.
Marc:It's a triple threat of a Die Hard movie.
Marc:And also, great.
Guest:Great villain, great actor playing a great villain, great supporting cast with Jeff Daniels and Sandra Bullock.
Guest:I mean, Speed is the one that I think is the closest to being like Die Hard, Die Hard level quality, like as good as Die Hard, just a different movie.
Guest:I think it's Speed.
Guest:Now, what is yours that is different?
Marc:Oh, man, I can't believe you omitted this because this is Die Hard.
Marc:on air force one oh and it is air force one it is air force one you got harrison ford you got gary oldman you got glenn close i mean this is a great fucking movie and an all-timer also has get off my plane as his yippee-ki-yay i mean it's an all-timer of all like like how did you omit this
Guest:Because I never liked it.
Guest:What?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So out of respect to you, I will have to go back and rewatch it.
Guest:I always thought it was the lazy version of everything we've been talking about.
Guest:But I haven't.
Guest:have to admit that was after seeing it once now granted you would think if i really you know if there were the things that are good about diehard got their hooks in me with this movie i'd have watched it more times but i didn't uh and i didn't you know it's weird too it's got a great pedigree beyond just the the actors you talked about i mean wolfgang peterson is the director who you know made a ton of movies in the 90s that were
Guest:you know really great uh uh in the line of fire he made the original uh das boot uh in in german like so i i probably should like air force one more than i do uh and especially for the reasons you're saying the cast the uh the kind of the locale uh you know what it also could be it could be that it was just burnout by that time
Guest:That's like 1997.
Guest:You've been through a lot of cycles of diehard Annas, particularly on planes, right?
Guest:There've been a lot of planes by that point.
Guest:So I think it might make a difference as to when you see Air Force One and whether or not it's going to have a lasting impact on you.
Marc:Yeah, there are a couple of other ones that don't necessarily fall into the diehard with like a bad guy taking over a thing.
Marc:However...
Marc:I would be remiss if I did not mention them.
Marc:So one of them is Die Hard on a Submarine.
Marc:For me, I think of it like that because it is Crimson Tide.
Guest:Oh, kind of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, when you think about it as like one unlikely hero that has to stand up to the bad guys, sure.
Guest:It's more of like instead of violence, though, they use talking.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Yes, that's true.
Marc:I mean, there is a shootout and everything, but yeah, it's definitely like that.
Marc:So that's one of my favorites.
Marc:But also, and it doesn't fall in the parameters that you're talking about, because there is really no villain except for incompetence, but it's Unstoppable.
Marc:Well, Die Hard on a Train.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Do you remember Unstoppable?
Marc:It's with Denzel Washington again, and then Chris Pine.
Guest:Yes, right.
Marc:Very, very reminiscent to a Die Hard where there's walkie-talkies and there's action, but there is no villain.
Guest:Well, you also just brought up two movies by the same director.
Guest:Those are both Tony Scott movies.
Guest:Amazing.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So, yeah, Tony Scott doing the Lord's work there.
Marc:But then there's one last one, and it is Die Hard with Aliens, and that is Edge of Tomorrow.
Right.
Guest:Oh, man.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Couldn't be a better one.
Marc:Yeah, that is, ooh, baby.
Marc:That one, if it had a Christmas element to it, I would watch it every Christmas.
Guest:Okay, but here's the reason that never gets brought up.
Guest:Why?
Guest:Because that's Groundhog's Day.
Guest:Groundhog's Day.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Right.
Marc:You're right.
Marc:But it is Die Hard and Groundhog's Day had a sci-fi baby.
Guest:yes that's what that is uh but you know i bring it up to people all the time and you know the most common reaction when i bring up edge of tomorrow as a as a great movie what's that people say i've never seen it how is that possible i can't tell you so many people i've never seen edge of tomorrow when like just in my sphere i just i bring it up so much and i'm like oh that's the greatest and and then i get jealous of them i'm like you're gonna get to watch edge of tomorrow yes
Marc:Yes, totally.
Marc:Totally with fresh eyes for the first time.
Marc:Oh man.
Marc:I might, I might have to check that out.
Marc:I'm actually kind of bummed.
Marc:I'm not that I have my nephews this weekend, but I'm bummed that I can't show them Die Hard.
Marc:Like I was watching Die Hard.
Marc:I was like, oh man, this guy's kneecaps really exploded this scene.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's a little too, my son has asked me if he could watch it yet.
Guest:And I said, it's, you know, it's not quite there, but yeah.
Marc:But Edge of Tomorrow, maybe?
Guest:That's a PG-13, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:So maybe I might check out Edge of Tomorrow with my family.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, I think we've been very thorough about this, but if you have diehard Anna movies that we should consider, and maybe they will be ones that are so good, we'll watch them every year, and they'll become new Christmas classics.
Guest:just send us a comment or send us your suggestions or ideas in the link that's in the episode description there.
Guest:We will do shortly.
Guest:We got, I think two Friday shows before the end of the year where we're not going to do a brand new show the last Friday of this year.
Guest:So we got two more Fridays and one of those we will do devote entirely to your feedback, do a mailbag episode because we've had a lot come in and I just want to give a good amount of attention to
Guest:to the stuff you're sending in, both comments and reactions and your own ideas based on things that we've been talking about in the past few weeks.
Guest:We will close it out for our wrestling buddies with the best thing in wrestling this past week.
Guest:Chris, do you have anything?
Marc:My favorite thing I've seen is what AEW is doing with Tony Storm, timeless Tony Storm, where they are making her a diva.
Marc:And honestly, they're ripping off, I mean, they're homaging all about Eve.
Guest:Yeah, the whole plot of her storyline right now is coming from All About Eve.
Guest:And she's, yes, she's this aging starlet who is still trying to grasp on to her spot at the top of the game.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And they're weaving this story.
Marc:And if, you know, kids today don't know what All About Eve is.
Marc:Like, I barely know of it.
Marc:But it is...
Marc:such a delightful little like just adjustment to the story like they just they just reframe the focus on tony storm and it is so good so well done and this week they had uh tcm's a turn of classic movies uh ben mankowitz introduce her like yeah it was it was wonderful i absolutely loved it also loved her match with sky blue i'm a huge fan of i love sky blue
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that was, I think, the probably best sky blue match.
Guest:But yeah, you know, that's a great it's a great example.
Guest:I'm glad you brought it up because it's the kind of thing that people who aren't into wrestling, they've never watched it.
Guest:If they come across this and they catch it in the right spirit, they're like, oh, this stuff's fun.
Guest:Right.
Guest:It's it's it's got a it's got a fun element for me, someone who doesn't care about this stuff that I can latch on to.
Guest:And here is a wrestler who is the women's champion.
Guest:And her whole gimmick is that she's basically out of a 1940s Hollywood studio film.
Guest:And that's all you got to know.
Guest:And then you watch her parade around and do her shtick.
Guest:And it's really, really great.
Guest:Now, on the flip side of that, I will say my favorite thing is this entire round robin tournament that they are running, the Continental Classic, which does the opposite.
Guest:It is for people who just want to experience wrestling as though it was a sport.
Guest:Yes.
Guest:And it really is like there's there's all these scenarios getting played out because of who can win what match and what that means for next week.
Guest:And, you know, frankly, I'm not someone who watches a lot of the NBA.
Guest:But what I've seen is that what they're doing right now, this in-season tournament, which is also a round robin style tournament.
Guest:the play has improved dramatically.
Guest:The teams that are playing in these in-season tournament games are playing each other like they're in the postseason.
Guest:It really elevates the stakes when you're playing for something every week.
Guest:It has implications on the next week or the
Guest:Games that are still to come are still on the schedule.
Guest:And so I'm really enjoying that.
Guest:I'm so glad they're doing it.
Guest:And I'm so glad they're already saying it's going to come back every year.
Guest:So it's a fun time right now, I think, to be a wrestling fan.
Guest:If you are a wrestling fan and you have any idea of what we're talking about, I want to know your thoughts on the current Continental Classic Tournament and Timeless Tony Storm.
Guest:We will do a mailbag episode either next week or the week after as we wrap up this first year of the full Marin and the Friday show.
Guest:And until that time, I'm Brendan and that's Chris.
Guest:Peace.