Episode 16: Footloose(s)

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In this Episode:

Chris and Allen compare the 1984 and 2011 versions of Footloose. Where kids try to overturn the outrageous and ludicrous ban on dancing in their town. They discover along the way that it’s based on a real town, the soundtrack is amazing and Chris is really going through something here.

The Movies:

Footloose (1984):

Footloose (2011):

In both films big city kid Ren McCormack (Kevin Bacon and then Kenny Wormald) moves to a small rural, God fearing, town where community leaders have banned public dancing in the wake of a local tragedy.

It’s funny that simply because Ren likes to dance, has read Vonnegut and comes from the city marks him out as agitator in the town. When in actuality he’s a stand up guy who set about getting a job as soon as he could and actively tries to avoid trouble. Small towns small minds I guess.

 

For such lightweight and teen-centric movies about dancing and filled with bright, uptempo, pop hits the underlying theme is grief and how people deal with it. From Ariel’s (Lone Skye and Julian Hough) self destruction to her father Rev. Shaw Moore (John Lithgow and Dennis Quaid) beginning to lose control in his home life, and community as the come to terms with the loss of a brother and son, respectively.

Alongside the pop songs and dance numbers there is plenty happening. The darkside of a rampant moral majority, domestic violence and vehicular games of chicken. The tractor showdown in the original does out shine the ‘stock car’ bus fight in the remake.

A Hotwheels version of Ren’s car.

Both movies have great casts and plenty to recommend them. The world didn’t really need a Footloose remake, it already had a successful stage version produced. They both have flaws, but which ever you choose it will get you where you’re going in a classic scrappy gang of underdogs fighting the powers that be tale.

 

All clips in the episode are used under Fair Use for the purposes of criticism and are not intended to diminish the original works or limit the ability of the copyright owners to market or sell their product.

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Episode 15: The Right Kind of Terrible

…A Star Wars Story

 

In this episode Chris and Allen have a little, spoiler free, chat about Rogue One and their initial thoughts. So join their stroll through the Uncanny Valley as they chat about the turkeys of 2016, Hollywood nonagenarians, Ridley Scott projects and the awesome Walton Goggins. And of course Trailer Talk.

Transformers: The Last Knight

 

The Mummy

War For Planet of the Apes

Death Race 2050

 

All clips in the episode are used under Fair Use for the purposes of criticism and are not intended to diminish the original works or limit the ability of the copyright owners to market or sell their product.

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Episode 14: A Good Day To Die Hard

In This Episode:

The discussion was meant to centre on the fifth installment in the Die Hard franchise, however it is possibly the worst film Chris and Allen have looked at for the show to date. So we, instead, cover the other, better, Die Hard movies, the ingredients that work in them, the number of knock off’s inspired by them and the evolution of the character of John McClane from vulnerable, wise-cracking everyman to a seemingly bulletproof superhero.

One of Allen’s holiday snaps from his trip to “Nakatomi Plaza”

The Movie:

Die Hard (1988) is based on Nothing Lasts Forever, a thriller by American crime writer Roderick Thorp. The book was his second featuring ex-cop Joe Leland. His first Leland novel was used as the source for the 1966 Frank Sinatra film The Detective. So when 20th Century Fox pressed ahead with their Nothing Lasts Forever project they were contractually obligated to offer the lead role to Sinatra. The only snag? ‘Ol Blue Eyes was 73 years old, so passed on the offer. Fox removed any connections to The Detective and retooled the script as a sequel to Commando (1985) for Arnold Schwarzenegger. He too passed on the project and it was altered again, including renaming the lead John McClane, to become a stand alone film.

A summer sleeper that became a blockbuster, reshaping action movies forever and turning Bruce Willis into a giant star. Four sequels would follow beginning in 1990 with Die Hard 2, sometimes referred to as Die Harder. The most recent, A Good Day to Die Hard (2013), sees Willis, as McClane, going on a mission to Moscow to reconnected with his estranged son, who happens to be a super CIA spy.

The film is the first original Die Hard movie, not based on an existing source, it is also the furthest removed from the taught, contained, high octane thriller of the original. McClane’s journey throughout the series has seen him evolve from a wisecracking, foul mouthed everyman to a seemingly bulletproof, indestructible man-machine, the antithesis of the John McClane we came to know and love in the early outings. The vulnerability of our hero from the previous films, which make his struggles to overcome the seemingly insurmountable odds even more incredible and gets the audience behind him, is completely gone. Instead its replaced with father/son bickering with a backdrop of loud explosions  which can’t, as Leonard Maltin points out in his review, even muster a decent one-liner for Willis.

 

Clearly our opinion is in the minority. The movie took a huge amount at the box office in the face of a negative critical response. Holding a 14% critic score on Rotten Tomatoes but taking over $300 MILLION at the worldwide box office.

Ho Ho Ho! Now I Have A Machine Gun:

A Good Day to Die Hard feels like it was built for the sole purpose of easing John McClane out of the franchise and replacing him with McClane Jr. (Jai Courtney) to reinvigorate the property for Fox, and years to come.

Latterly the original movie has become a perennial holiday favourite, with a meme filled internet flame war over whether it should even qualify as a Christmas movie or not. Whether you subscribe or not shouldn’t take anything away from Die Hard, a stone cold classic. The follow up comes close in quality, the third has a wonderful pair up of Willis and Samuel L. Jackson, the fourth is just a generic internet action thriller and finally we round out with the terrible A Good Day to Die Hard, Yippie Ki Ay Mother Russia!

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