retro movie review: Other People's Money

Danny DeVito may be a versatile actor, but his career was at its height when he stuck with playing essentially the same role over and over, that of the conniving, greedy, ruthless cad who doesn't just indulge in his own vices, but delights and prides in them.  From 1978 to 1992 -- or, more specifically, from Taxi (the show in which he first established this persona) up to and including Batman Returns (after which he started seeking more variety in his roles), he played pretty more or less the same character no less than eleven times, and we loved him for it.  His secret was that he and his writers always found a way to make his characters somehow likable despite their almost evil actions.

Despite the multitude of examples to choose from, there are, in my mind, two films which best represent what I think of as "classic Danny DeVito," "best" not necessarily in terms of some sort of contest of quality, but because they really explore the Danny DeVito character we came to know and love.  Those two films are the box office success Ruthless People and the more obscure Other People's Money.

We are introduced to the DeVito character through a soliloquy he delivers directly to the camera, to the viewers, in which he has one point and one point only:  how much he loves, loves, loves money.  "I love money itself even more than the stuff that money can buy!" he enthuses.  The character's name is Lawrence J. Garfield, but he's better known on Wall Street (and to his victims elsewhere) as "Larry the Liquidator," because he likes to buy companies specifically in order to liquidate them for the cash value of their assetts.  It may sound like he's just sending his money in circles, but he's got a system that obviously works, judging by his corner office, his name on the company header, and his lavish lifestyle.  To Garfield, money is not just a means of commerce or earning a living (although these aspects of money are dear to his heart), but he personifies money as something that "gives you such unconditional love."  To emphasize his feelings on the matter, he likens money to a dog that doesn't poop on the carpet.

The story is set in motion when Garfield's computer alerts him to the fact that stock in New England Wire & Cable has gone up one and a half points.  This motivates him to start a process that is clearly routine for him, the process of buying up enough stock so that he will have the authority to begin liquidation.  Interestingly, his first tactic is to approach the head of the company, Chairman Andrew "Jorgy" Jorgensen, in an attempt to convince Mr. Jorgensen that liquidation is the most profitable and wisest possible future for the company, as far as the profits of shareholders' stock is concerned.  Mr. Jorgensen, whose father founded the company and left it to him before it went public, is appalled by Garfield's plan and wants no part of it.  He feels so strongly about this that he doesn't even want to talk about Garfield's plan.  Some of his closest friends/ highest employees, especially company vice president William J. "Bill" Coles (Dean Jones) try to talk some sense into Mr. Jorgensen, try to get him to at least listen to Garfield, or if not that, at least prepare for what might happen if Garfield goes away angry.  Mr. Jorgensen will have none of it.  We admire his principle, but immediately recognize that his stubbornness will be his downfall.  Garfield knows what he's doing, and he approached Mr. Jorgensen only as a courtesy, not because he really needs Jorgy for putting his plan into motion.

Ostensibly, the conflict at the center of the story has now been established, as Garfield uses every trick in the book to launch a hostile takeover, and Mr. Jorgensen relies on help from friends,  grass-roots tactics, and appeals to tradition to block Garfield, reasoning that "this company isn't just about making money, we've become a family!"

In a Frank Capra movie, Garfield would be the villain and Mr. Jorgensen the hero.  But the writers here aren't interested in such a black and white approach.  They present Garfield as ruthless, but also practical and responsible ("I'm here to make you money," he reasonably points out at a shareholders' meeting), and Mr. Jorgensen, for all his sincere dignity, honor, and integrity, comes across as naive, out of touch, and so sentimental that he is blind to reality.  Furthermore, as Garfield points out, Mr. Jorgensen's "this is first and foremost a family" approach to running a business is hurting a lot of people in the pocketbook.

A few words about the casting:  The two male leads are perfect for their roles.  I've already pretty much said that even if the role of Larry the Liquidator wasn't originally written for DeVito, it feels like it was.  It's almost impossible to imagine anyone else (certainly anyone else in 1991, the year of the film's release) playing the character so well.

The same can be said for Mr. Jorgensen.  There aren't many famous actors who could play Mr. Jorgensen without making the character look like a doddering old fool -- which would have killed the movie.  For this role, you need someone who will sound important and right when he talks about his naive, out-dated reasons for willfully sacrificing profit in favor of tradition; that's the only way to make him seem less like a fool or a victim, and more like a worthy opponent to Garfield.  The only other living (at the time) actor that might have worked was Jimmy Stewart.  The filmmakers managed to get someone just as good if not better:  Gregory Peck.  The man played Abraham Lincoln and Atticus Finch, for God's sake.  When Gregory Peck talks about dignity and honor, you listen.

Now it seems I've set up the basics of the movie, but I've yet to mention the final key element:  In a partial realization that he's out of his element, Mr. Jorgensen hires his own step-daughter to help block Garfield's takeover attempt.  The daughter, played by Penelope Ann Miller, is Kate Sullivan, a Manhattan attorney, and the character provides two functions in the film:  First, she is sort of a bridge between the two opposing characters, as she exhibits the honorable values of Mr. Jorgensen, but the tactics she uses to defend those values are every bit as manipulative as the tactics of Lawrence Garfield.

Second, she provides Garfield with a romantic interest.  This is no dumb romance subplot shoe-horned into the script for purposes of Hollywood formula, no sir.  The chemistry between Garfield and Sullivan becomes the very heart of the film.  Kate is repelled by many of the more obvious aspects of Garfield's character, but the fact that he is able to charm and surprise her speaks volumes for his character, it shows that he's more than just a ruthless Wall Street banker, that he has a heart, and if so, maybe there's something to be said for his plans for New England Wire & Cable.  The fact that Garfield and Sullivan are bitter opponents, and yet also able to find common ground -- not only with the possibility of romance, but also when Kate secretly finds wisdom in some of what Garfield says about his job and its implications for her clients -- well, all of this is what makes this movie a work of intelligence, and not a simple "Big Bad Banker" melodrama.

If Other People's Money has a flaw, it's in the stage origins.  There are scenes that seem like a play, in both their dialogue and staging, and hey, I like plays, but I came here to watch a movie.  But between the intelligent, even thought-provoking writing, the perfect casting, and the exemplary Danny DeVito performance, this movie has a lot to offer.

Movie Review, The Expendables 2

I have to start this review with a confession:  I thoroughly enjoyed The Expendables, Sylvester Stallone's 2010 tribute to action films.  I cannot defend this in a debate about cinematic virtues, I can only say that it was pretty damn cool.  At the time, I thought that any self-respecting action movie fan would think the same.  Stallone, Jason Statham, Jet Li, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and Bruce Willis all in the same movie?!  It's action movie fan heaven!  Quality of the film itself is almost beside the point! -- or so I thought at the time.

Then the sequel came out, and if The Expendables was a  gleefully excessively violent film that happily lacked any subtlety, The Expendables 2 makes the first film look like a Jane Austen flick.  Some fans of the original may mistake that statement as a recommendation.  It is not.

It's almost laughable to even consider discussing plot.  Here's the plot:  The Expendables (the good guys) are assigned to retrieve a safe.  Bad guys get it instead.  The Expendables want it back.  Chaos ensues.

That's the whole movie right there.  Does it matter?  The first movie didn't have much of a plot either, and it worked.  What's different is that the first movie had a constant sense of fun.  The second movie has a constant sense of hitting you over the head with the message, "this is fun, dammit!!!"  It's not the same thing.

In the first movie, even when all hell was breaking loose in the midst of a war zone, you at least got the sense that the director (Stallone) cared about what was going on, and gave us some detail.  Here, the director is Simon West, who may not be a worse director, but he seems to have less to work with, and it shows.  Almost every scene in the entire movie can be summarized as follows:  Bad guys and good guys shoot at each other.  Many anonymous bad guys die.  Things blow up.  Repeat ad nauseum.  The only variable is who's doing the shooting.  Look, it's Sylvester Stallone!  Look, it's Arnold Schwarzenegger!  Look, it's Chuck Norris!  Look, it's Bruce Willis!

At the risk of repeating myself, action fans may think this sounds like a recommendation (the combination of names alone would bring a smile to the faces of most fans of the genre), but it's worth emphasizing that I am an action fan, and I found this to be tedious.  There's something wrong when you have this much excitement on the screen, and I'm checking my watch.

Like the first movie (and most action movies), The Expendables 2 has a sense of humor, but whereas the first film might have inspired a couple of chuckles here and there, the humor here is poorly delivered and poorly written.  When Norris appears on the scene, for example, it gives the writers a chance to throw a couple of "Chuck Norris Facts" (popular Internet jokes exaggerating how tough Norris is) into the dialogue.  The scene inspired me to write a Chuck Norris Fact of my own:

Two things about Chuck Norris:  1.  Chuck Norris has a sense of humor and can laugh at himself.  2.  No one else can laugh at Chuck Norris.

Norris, it turns out, has absolutely no sense of comic delivery.  I mean none.  I mean any random guy off the street can apparently tell a joke better than Chuck Norris can.

Then there's this very minor spoiler, but I'm going to include in this review my favorite bit of dialogue, not favorite because it was good, but favorite because it so perfectly illustrates how extremely lame the comedy is here:

Schwarzenegger:  I'm out of ammo!  I'll be back!

Willis:  You always say you'll be back!  You're back already!  How 'bout this time, I'll be back!  Find something else to say!

Schwarzenegger:  Well, yippee-kay-yay.

This bit just doesn't work.  For one thing, throughout the film, Schwarzenegger has been saying either "I'll be back" or "I'm back" in every single scene he's been in.  Every single scene!  And now they expect us to laugh again?  Okay, okay, we get it, it's Arnold Schwarzenegger.  So in an effort to top its own extremely overplayed joke, the movie works Willis and his catch phrase into the act.  But the problem is that Schwarzenegger and Willis are playing it up so over-the-top that they are coming across less like characters and more like caricatures.  There simply isn't any reason for Church and Trench (the characters played by Willis and Schwarzenegger) to say these words, no reason at all -- so it becomes less a bit of dialogue and more like the filmmakers turning to the audience and saying, "get it, we're making fun of their catch phrases, ain't that hilarious?"

Self-mockery needs a sense of finesse.  If your buddy makes a joke about himself, it might or might not be funny, but the easiest way for him to kill the humor is for him to literally elbow you in the ribs and and say, "see, I'm making fun of myself, funny, right, huh, right?!?"  That's what Schwarzenegger, Willis, and their writers are doing here.

Now let me be clear:  This movie is not a good movie.  Nor is it a complete waste of your time, and if you look, there are a very few things about it that are actually every bit as fun as the movie itself tries to be.  To be specific, there are three (and only three) reasons to like this movie:

1.  Jean-Claude van Damme.  Between his Clouseau-like accent and his tendency to star in B-level action movies, Van Damme has mostly been dismissed as a talentless hack.  The otherwise over-rated comeback vehicle J.C.V.D. changed that perception a little bit, and showed audiences and critics that the guy actually can act.  Here, he plays a rare villainous role.  The character's name actually is "Villain," even if it is pronounced "Vill-ayn."  A villain named Villain, hey, I told you the movie lacked subtlety.  But at least Van Damme is effective in the role.

2.  The fight scene between Jason Statham and Scott Adkins.  Both actors are known for doing their own stunts, and so out of the many, many action scenes in the movie, the fight between Adkins's and Statham's characters is the best choreographed.  It's amazing how much that makes a difference.

3.  The fight scene between Stallone and Van Damme.  The big fight between the main hero and main villain is, of course, inevitable in a movie like this.  I've read that the original script called for Villain to run rather than fight Stallone, but that surely would have caused riots in the theaters if they'd gone with that.  After sitting through all the nonsense, the Stallone/ van Damme fight is just the pay-out.  And the movie here doesn't disappoint.  It's everything a good fight scene should be:  extended enough to allow the villain little "time out moments" to strut and gloat, fast-paced enough to be exciting, and counter-balanced enough to give first one combatant a clear upper hand, and then the other.  That's how these scenes are supposed to work.  Best of all, both actors get to incorporate their personas into the fight, as Stallone throws Rocky-like punches (complete with Rockyish grunts of "hyuh, hyuh!") while Van Damme gets in some good kickboxing kicks.

Once the above scene is finished, you might as well turn off your TV.  You know what happens next.  The good guys who once held grudges against each other suddenly realize that they're really friends, everyone has a good laugh over a bad pun, credits roll.  If you think I'm giving anything away by saying that, then you haven't watched a single action movie in your entire life.

Movie Review: Apartment 143

Once a year, I devote a blog entry to reviewing a film from the "found footage" genre, a subcategory of horror films that is so new that as recently as my review of The Last Exorcsim just last year, the genre still didn't yet have a standardized name.  Now it does, and one of the latest found footage films is Apartment 143 (originally released in Spain as Emergo), about three family members and three parapsychologists trying to get to the bottom of the family apartment's haunting.

This whole thing started with the indie film The Blair Witch Project (which may not have been the first in the genre, but it was certainly the film to popularize it), and the irony is that this is the one genre in all of filmmaking in which, as the budgets go up, the quality necessarily goes down.  After all, the entire concept depends on convincing you, at least on a "suspension of disbelief" level (since, at this point, we are all too familiar with the idea to actually be convinced) that we are looking at actual raw footage of an event.  That's why at least on one level, whether you like the movie or not, The Blair Witch Project was probably the most effective film of its kind, because regardless of whether you call the movie itself hopelessly idiotic or a work of genius, the true genius was in the marketing, convincing many of its viewers (oh, how naive we were then, America!) that what we were watching actually was found footage.

Of course, now we know better, so we're back to the ol' suspension of disbelief.  In my review of The Last Exorcism last year, I briefly wondered if the filmmakers were starting to lose interest in the idea of actually convincing the audience that the contents were indeed found footage.  With Apartment 143, the issue isn't even a question anymore, as the main cast includes recognizable character actors Kai Lennox (The Unusuals), Michael O'Keefe (Caddyshack, The West Wing), and Rick Gonzalez (Boston Public, War of the Worlds).  At the risk of mentioning the obvious, I have to point out that casting recognizable actors in a film of this sort completely misses and ruins the point of the genre, which (also at the risk of repeating myself) depends on, even if actually convincing us is no longer possible, at least the illusion that the events of the movie genuinely happened to ordinary people and happened to be caught on film.  As found footage movies become less and less indie and more and more Hollywood, I can't help but wonder how long it is before makers of this type of movie completely abandon any effort at all, and we are subjected to a movie in which the allegedly genuine found footage is of two "regular guys" in a haunted house, and the two guys are played by Russell Crowe and Tom Cruise.  But that's just speculation on my part, and hopefully things will never get quite that bad.

Anyway, the preaching aside, let's at least address what little plot there is.  Of course (and this isn't a complaint about haunted house movies, just an observation) a movie of this type doesn't really require much of a plot; all the producers really need to say to the actors and special effects people is "six people in a haunted apartment, go!" and you gotcher self a movie.  But screenwriter Rodrigo Cortes deserves a kudo or two for at least trying to inject some back story into the proceedings, as the father played by Lennox is recently widowed, and for (eventually mundane) reasons that aren't spoken aloud until the film is almost over, the daughter blames the father for the mother's death.

There are two ways of looking at this back story:  One could argue that it adds an extra layer to the events unfolding on the screen, and I guess that was the writer's intention, but frankly, you could have edited out the entire monologue about how the wife died, and you really wouldn't have changed anything significant.  In fact, to me, the only real point of the revelatory monologue isn't narrative, but rather to give Lennox a chance to show his acting chops.

But someone really should have told the filmmakers that that's the wrong, wrong, wrong attitude behind this kind of movie!  If a found footage film is to work at all, it's precisely by foregoing the recognizable actors and Oscar ploy moments -- and Lennox's monologue about the circumstances behind his wife's death is the perfect example of why.  He kinda works in this film when he's presented as just a regular guy (that's the point, that's the point!) but the movie loses all hope when he gets on camera and acts his heart out, as if he's a theater student auditioning for a Method instructor.  It's all over the top, in a genre in which "over the top" just kills the mood.

Yet Michael O'Keefe, as the lead parapsychologist, errs too far in the opposite direction, since whereas Lennox is, at one point, too emotional for the film to work, O'Keefe's character oddly seems to lack any emotion at all.  At first, this seemed like a legitimate aspect of his character, and I accepted his lack of emotion, because the character is in the apartment in a professional capacity as a parapsychologist, and I figured he just prides himself on his emotional detachment from potentially terrifying circumstances.  But as things get crazier and crazier, and he just stares with a blank look on his face, I increasingly got the feeling that O'Keefe's unemotionality had nothing to do with the character itself, and had everything to do with an unwise "actor's choice," as if O'Keefe -- or perhaps director Carles Torrens -- decided that "what this movie really needs is understatement."  Yes, that's the perfect way to describe O'Keefe's performance:  It's too understated.  Not that I'm trying to be clever here, but it would be an understatement to say that O'Keefe's performance is understated.

Minor spoiler alert:  I want to very briefly discuss one of the last lines in the movie.  If you've read this far and still intend to see the movie (although by now it's clear I'm not recommending it) maybe you wanna skip this paragraph.  But in the interest of completionism, this moment in the movie has to be addressed:  After things have gone all to hell (and in haunted house movies, they all eventually do go nuts, you need a pay-off after all the build-up) and then calmed down again, there's a quiet moment at the end when the parapsychologists are casually chatting while putting their equipment away.  The Ricky Gonzalez character, commenting on the chaos that had happened before, states it was a "very interesting" day.

"Most unusual," O'Keefe agrees (with zero emotion of course).  "The most unusual day of my life -- with one or two possible exceptions."

I sort of liked this line and sort of didn't.  On the plus side, it combines a hint of humor with a hint of history, shining some light onto why he had such little reaction to all the chaos that was happening around him, as he's apparently an old pro who feels he's seen it all before.  On the other hand, the purpose of the line is just too transparent, as we're too clearly supposed to think, "wow, if he's had days more unusual than this, I wonder what those other days were like!"  Maybe it's even a (though I shudder to think it) set up for potential prequels involving the same character.  The point is that the line, although it's a good one, is too plainly a writer's line, not a character's line.  It's the writer trying to be clever, not something the character would say.

With transparently written lines like this, recognizable actors in the cast, and too-streamlined editing, the makers of Apartment 143 haven't made a bad movie, exactly (since if you want a couple of cheap scares, the movie delivers) but the end result is just as dissatisfying, as the filmmakers have illustrated that they clearly don't understand what it takes to make a movie of this type in the first place.  Perhaps they shouldn't have tried at all.

Die Hard: A Series in Review

After recently watching Live Free or Die Hard, I began to reflect on the popularity of the "Die Hard" films, and with A Good Day to Die Hard about to hit theaters, now seems like a good time to look back at the previous entries in the series.

To many viewers (myself included), the original Die Hard seems almost as fresh as the year it was released, but believe it or not, that year was 24 years ago, and times have changed.  (How much have they changed?  The main character takes a commercial flight with a gun in his holster, able to do so because he is an NYC cop.)  Back then, Bruce Willis was not a movie star.  Oh, he'd been in movies before -- big roles in a couple of sorta-small films, very small roles in a couple of sorta-big films -- but what he was really known for was as a TV star, as David Addison in Moonlighting.  (I remember a Mad Magazine spoof of Die Hard in which a character gripes, "when I heard that a star of Moonlighting was going to spend half the movie without a shirt on, I was hoping it'd be Cybill Shepherd.")

From the very first shot of Willis in Die Hard, we see that this is a Bruce Willis of a different era in his career.  I'm not talking about the fact that he had hair back then, but look at that smirk he wears throughout the scene.  The smirk has nothing to do with the character's actual emotional state, and everything to do with the fact that audiences knew Willis's wise-ass persona from television.  The smirk seems to say, "yeah, that's right, I'm the guy from Moonlighting."

Much has been said about the psychologically different reactions audiences have toward movie stars and TV stars; going to the movies is an event, and we gape at the literally larger-than-life movie stars on the big screen, while TV stars are routinely invited into our home.  It's with this difference in mind that we can comment on what a good idea it was to cast a familiar TV star in the lead role of Die Hard, rather than casting an established movie action hero.  Think about it:  Arnold Schwarzenegger was the Terminator.  Chuck Norris was already known for kicking ass (even having fought Bruce Lee on screen).  Sylvester Stallone was an icon as Rocky Balboa and a one-man army as John Rambo.  But who was Bruce Willis?  Why, he was just a wise-cracking but otherwise regular guy!  Die Hard may not have been written with the star of Moonlighting in mind (it was actually based on Nothing Lasts Forever, a novel by Roderick Thorp), but it sure as heck feels like it.

This "he's just a regular guy" approach may initially seem like an incidental detail, but far from it -- it's actually the very heart of much of the film's appeal.  Yes, John McClane eventually ends up single-handedly defeating what seems like a small army of heavily armed bad guys, but if you haven't seen Die Hard in a while, watch again, and notice how director John McTiernan and writers Jeb Stuart and Steven E. DeSouza go to great lengths to show you how McClane defeats them -- not with superhuman feats, but with a combination of determination, ingenuity, and dumb luck.  Unlike James Bond or the characters played by Norris, Schwarzenegger, and Stallone, McClane always seems in danger of losing the fight for his life every time he has to go mano-a-mano with even minor bad guys.  McClane may exercise superheroics, but he's no superhero; he gripes a lot, he gets scared, and when he gets hurt, Willis conveys that McClane does indeed feel pain.  McClane's everyman humanity is a recurring element throughout the series, but the best example is in the first film, when the barefoot McClane has to flee for his life over a floor covered with broken glass.  Director McTiernan shows Willis's face for just a moment in this sequence, but it's a moment long enough for us to clearly see McClane weighing his options and making his decision.  Willis's face conveys so much at once -- despair, fear, panic, reluctance -- and we think, "I know he has to run across that glass, but can he?"  Later, as McClane tends to his wounds, nearly passing out from the pain in his feet, the scene is both believable (as anyone who has had even a small sliver of glass in his foot knows how painful it can be) and shocking (as action movies at the time rarely showed their heroes noticing pain [can you imagine how the scene would have played out with the Schwarzenegger persona of the time?])

I'm one of the few who loves Die Hard 2 as much as the original.  For one thing, McClane's everyman persona is very much intact.  Yes, there is some dialogue about his experience and instincts as a police officer, but despite his heroic actions, McClane is not depicted as a supercop, but just as a guy trying to get stuff done.  Even if the average viewer can't relate to his actions or circumstances, we can relate to his attitude and motivation.

For another thing, I admire the writers' smartly simple solution to what could have been a major dilemma:  given the lengths to which the first film established that McClane is a regular guy, how to plausibly present his immersion in another bigger-than-life adventure?  Easy:  Have McClane himself marvel at the improbability of the situation.  "How can the same thing happen to the same guy twice?" McClane gripes in both the movie and the trailer.  Once again, McClane takes on a platoon of heavily armed bad guys, and once again he has to do it single-handedly, as federal and local law enforcement (once again) turn out alternately incapable and unwilling to do what has to be done.  I like how this potentially unbelievable aspect of the stories is depicted as refreshingly realistic plot points; yes, the uncooperative Dwayne T. Robinson and Carmine Lorenzo police chiefs come across as jerks, but hey, they've got a job to do, they've been trained to do it by the book (even when circumstances call for the book to be thrown out the window), and McClane is, from their perspective, a mysterious outsider wild-card with his own agenda and a tendency to blow stuff up.

The third film, Die Hard With a Vengeance, takes a gratifyingly different approach to this aspect of action films, and shows McClane actually being aided, rather than hindered, by the local police.

With a Vengeance mostly eschews the now familiar Die Hard formula (which had at that point been copied in quite a few otherwise unrelated action films) in favor of a buddy movie format, teaming McClane with Samuel L. Jackson's Zeus Carver.  What could have been a stale formula film, however, is enlivened by the inspiration of the villain's penchant for riddles and intellectual challenges.  Here we are reminded yet again that McClane isn't just a fightin' machine, he is, more than most action heroes, a guy who is highly capable of using his head (even when it's pounding from a hangover).  The dialogue between the Jackson and Willis characters is amusing, the villain's riddles are intriguing, and the story, even when it requires the main characters to be kept in the dark, is never for a moment confusing (yet nor is it ever condescending).  As I mentioned, I especially like how, this time around, McClane is shown as a part of a team, as the NYPD does everything it can to help McClane track down the madman threatening to blow up various parts of New York City.  The screenplay (having morphed from the previously unproduced script Simon Says) is good enough to have attracted original Die Hard director John McTiernan, despite his previous vows to never do a sequel.

The next entry in the series, Live Free or Die Hard, was released over a decade later, and even if the main character is still unmistakably John McClane, he is played by a very different Bruce Willis, a Bruce Willis who has matured as an actor.  McClane still has his smirk, for example, but now he actually seems to be smirking in character, as opposed to smirking as a wink to the audience.  It's interesting to observe how, even though he hasn't played the character in twelve years, the Bruce Willis and John McClane personas have now completely merged.  Back in 1990, 20th Century Fox could have gotten away with making Die Hard 2 with a different actor as McClane.  In 2007, the idea of another actor playing the role is simply absurd.

Live Free or Die Hard continues the ever-important strategy of reminding us of McClane's humanity by showing us new sides to his character.  We see him as an ineffective but well-meaning parent.  We see him on a routine police call.  And so on.  This nicely lays the groundwork to make us accept the guy's plausibility -- a highly necessary tactic, considering that his stunts in this film are more fantastic than in any of his previous films.  How expertly is this done?  At one point, McClane is shot at by a jet, has a bridge fall out from under him, lands on the jet, and survives when the plane crashes.  Kudos to director Len Wiseman for making such far-fetched events seem at least possible.  Yeah, okay, it sounds ridiculous.  But watch the sequence, and you'll see what I mean.

That compliment to Wiseman, by the way, is no small point here, but rather at the very heart of the appeal of the Die Hard series.  Consistently, the directors, stunt coordinators, and writers of the Die Hard films successfully convey not only John McClane's heroics, not only his humanity, but how they are intertwined, and how his increasingly extreme circumstances aren't just silly script contrivances but rather an important aspect of his character, who, the dialogue often points out, has a tendency to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.  It's all to make the implausible seem possible -- and here's to the people behind the scenes who succeed in doing just that every time a Die Hard movie is released.  I can't wait for the next one.

Why I'll Vote for Obama (And Why You Should Too)

1.  The Economy -- This has been Governor Mitt Romney's biggest talking point by far, and, ostensibly, it's easy to see why, as the economy has been so gosh-darn bad during President Barack Obama's administration.  But -- and I admit that this has been said many times before, but it bears emphasis, considering how important this point is -- Barack Obama didn't create this situation, no matter how much Mitt Romney and the Republicans want you to believe he did.  He didn't create it, he inherited it from the previous administration, a Republican administration, and that is not a small, unimportant distinction.  I am simply astounded by how many people either forget or ignore that it was during Bush, Jr.'s administration that the economy tanked in nearly every way imaginable, from employment to the housing market, to turning Bill Clinton's enormous national surplus into an enormous national debt.  Of course, the Republicans claimed that the prosperity of the Clinton years was a delayed result of the previous Republican administration, while the economic crisis of the following Republican administration was a delayed result of Clinton's policies.  With truly remarkable hypocrisy, however, Republicans now claim that Obama is somehow solely responsible for our current situation.  Never mind that Obama inherited the economic crisis from the previous president, apparently that argument, the very same "delayed result" argument that the Republicans have been crying over and over again, that somehow no longer flies.  Let's go back to the Republican policies of Bush.  Because it was working then, right?  Oh, wait, it wasn't.  Well  . . . "let's ignore that" say the Republicans.

2.  Obamacare --  I like it.  It's not perfect, and no one, not even Obama, has ever claimed that it is.  But the Republican objections against it seem to be based on two things, fear and ignorance.  The "fear" objection in turn is based on one word, and one word only:  SOCIALISM!  My god, it's socialism!  It's such a slippery slope!  Head for the hills, we're about to turn into the Soviet Union, and no one can save you from the doom and horrors that await!

Oh, please.

The second argument against Obamacare, while also completely steeped in fear, is less about gut-wrenching code words like SOCIALISM! but more based on misinforming the public.  For example, if you think that Obamacare will rob you of the ability or right to choose your own health care providers or health insurance, guess what:  You're wrong, and your "knowledge" is based on willful lies perpetuated by the Republican Party.  Obamacare, in fact -- it's all plain for anyone who wants to read the actual laws, by the way -- does not place such restrictions.  What it does is hold health insurance companies accountable for their actions.  It restricts their ability to treat its customers unfairly.  And it provides that, over time, everyone in America will be able to have health insurance of one form or another, whether it's one they can choose and pay for on their own, or one that is provided for them by the government if you can't afford it.  And you know what, maybe that is a form of socialism.  I admit, it certainly sounds like it to me.  But you know what, it also sounds good to me.  That doesn't make me a socialist.  I believe in capitalism.  Barack Obama, despite what the Republicans would have you believe, also believes in capitalism.  But guess what, my job doesn't provide benefits, and doesn't pay enough for me to easily afford buying my own private health insurance, something desperately needed for proper medical care in this country.  So when someone comes along and says, "how does actually affordable health insurance, courtesy of the United States government, sound to you?" I say "well gosh, Mr. Hypothetical, that sounds pretty darn good," and that doesn't make me lazy or a freeloader.  I work hard.  But I also acknowledge that, in terms of health care, we are the laughing stock of the world.  Dozens of other countries -- including, notably, dozens of non-socialist countries -- have some form of socialized health care, and their citizens prosper because of it.  As governor of Massachusetts, Mitt Romney recognized this, and introduced a universal health care plan to Mass -- and yet, now that he's running for president, he somehow demonizes Barack Obama for wanting to do the exact same thing for the nation.  I have yet to hear Romney explain how this isn't the height of hypocrisy.

3.  Romney and Bain -- A while back, Jon Stewart ripped Romney a new one for his questionable history regarding his tax returns as CEO of Bain Capital.  I'm not going to rehash the entire situation here, let's just sum up:  There at least appears to be a discrepancy between how much Romney earned, and how much taxes he paid -- or, more to the point, didn't pay -- on these earnings.  Romney's explanation, involving a "retroactive" resignation as CEO, actually explains nothing.  Stewart laid into Romney but good, but while it was good for a few laughs and maybe a water cooler debate or two, the issue seems to have been forgotten.  Now it's largely viewed as "old news."  Here's my stance:  It's not old news.  It's still a valid complaint.  It's still relevant.  The Republicans routinely bash Democrats as lacking in honesty, integrity, and transparency.  Yet here is a case where the Republican candidate has clearly behaved in a manner that lacks honesty, integrity, and transparency, and in a major, major way.  We're not talking about some street thief who picked five bucks out of someone's pocket.  We're talking about a presidential candidate who, from the looks of it, has pilfered hundreds and hundreds of dollars from his nation, and whose only defense is truly nonsensical.  And when we call him on it, the response is, "leave me alone, it's none of America's business."  Actually, yes it is.  That's our money.  And if you think it's not, fine, but let's at least hear a freakin' explanation.

4.  Romney -- Centrist or Not?  If the Obama campaign has had a hard time criticizing Romney's political positions, it's not because Romney's got the more valid points, it's because Romney himself can't seem to make up his mind on his own views.  I hesitate to use the term "flip flopping" as that's too often been leveled against politicians for even legitimate changes of opinion (and by this I mean that I have never seen anything wrong with changing your opinion as more information comes to light).  However, Romney's place on the political spectrum has been suspiciously convenient for whatever stage of the campaign he happens to be on at any given time.  When he was trying to win his party's nomination, he catered to what the Right likes to hear, about how Democrats are basically misguided at best and fiendish at worst, while the Republicans are geniuses and saints that have been unfairly demonized, blah blah, yadda yadda.  Once he got to the debates, however, and he had to appeal to the nation as a whole, he changed his tune a bit, and started outright contradicting himself.  Whereas the Great Republican Romney repeatedly bashed Obama for favoring the middle class over the extremely wealthy, the "appeal to the nation" Romney who appeared in the debates suddenly started championing the middle class, and making tax promises (concerning who would and wouldn't see tax breaks and tax increases) directly and inarguably conflicting with his earlier, Great Republican Romney promises.  When called on the fact that he routinely flubs statistics in his own favor, we get "Oh, I never said that the economy hasn't improved at all, just that it hasn't improved enough."  In response to this, I, on behalf of the American people, quote the great John Munch:  "If you're going to lie to me, at least lie with some respect!"  Because dude, you have claimed that the nation hasn't improved at all under Obama.  In fact, you have made this claim very publicly, very repeatedly.  And, after this back-tracking failed to fool anyone, you went back to making the claim, again choosing to ignore statistics on the economy.  This type of flip-flopping is not an example of legitimate changes of mind.  This is about lying.  This is about saying whatever is politically convenient for you at the time.  How Republicans can see all of this and then turn around and level "the guy just can't be trusted" comments at Obama instead, well that just boggles my mind.

5.  Romney's a Republican.  Now, this may alienate some readers as mere political party animosity, but hear me out.  Both parties have their extremists.  But of the two parties, only the Republicans routinely cater to their extremists' points of view.  Whether this is because Republicans actually agree with their more extremist elements, or merely use it for political gain, I couldn't say.  It's probably a bit of both, but that's just my guess.  But lord knows I'm sick of Republicans (and I'm not just talking about Glenn Beck, even if he is a prime example) comparing Democratic leaders to Nazis, socialist dictators, and terrorists.  Any thinking person on either side of the political divider can plainly see how ridiculous such comparisons are, and what's deplorable is how you almost never see Republican leaders calling each other out on this.  (Note:  I disagree with John McCain's politics, but he earned a lot of respect from me -- a lot of respect -- when he bucked this Republican tradition by publicly chastizing a woman for calling Obama a terrorist.)

And what do the Republican extremists want?  Well, at the risk of over-simplifying, I think of two (often overlapping) camps of Republican extremists -- the Christian extremists and the environmental extremists.  The Christian extremists want to erase the separation of church and state.  These are the people who insanely believe the concept of "intelligent design" to be some sort of compromise between religion and science, and when the educated point out that no, it's not a compromise, it's still just pure religion, the Christian extremists respond that public school science classes should then compromise by at least "teaching the controversy."  The goal is to make this the Christian nation that the extremists repeatedly and vehemently insist, against all evidence to the contrary, that our forefathers intended.  To these extremists' point of view, belief in evolution is not only wrong, it's outright evil, and pure stupidity.  And, to be blunt, putting a Republican in power in turn gives power, however indirectly, to the extremists that the Republican Party caters to and is largely made up of.  Look, I don't have anything against anyone's religious views, the problem is when large, powerful groups like the far Christian Right try to push their views onto America's youth and treat it as, pun intended, gospel truth -- with government backing, no less.

The environmental extremists are equally disturbing, perhaps more-so, considering how much their views have pervaded the mainstream.  The idea that global warming (to take by far the most relevant example) is in any way a controversy should be ludicrous, but thanks to these nut-heads, it remains an open question in far, far too many people's minds.  Let's be candid here:  The idea that global warming is "bad science" -- a phrase so often used by the Republican Party -- suggests that politicians somehow know more about science than scientists do.  The idea that global warming is a conspiracy is based on the truly bizarre idea that thousands of scientists, not just in America but from around the globe, have gotten together and, for reasons unknown, conspired to create a fabrication for, apparently, the sole purpose of aiding Democrats in their agenda.  The idea that global warming is a controversy is based on a complete lack of understanding of what it means to have a scientific consensus.  In short, every single argument Republicans have against global warming is not so much flawed as outright insane.

And now we've got a good look at the Republican attitude, which is to ignore common sense, argue against the evidence of our own experiences in the current world economy, twist history, and scoff at science -- in short, when you sum it all up, to defy all of humanity's understanding of the world.  No wonder so much of the Right complains about intellectual elitism.  As if intellect is a bad thing.

Look, I'm not saying that all Republicans are evil or stupid.  I don't believe that at all.  But I don't feel comfortable when the Republican Party caters to the bigoted, to the biased, to the willfully ignorant, and then says to me and the rest of the nation, "hey, vote for our guy!"  Uh, no, thank you.  I like that most science books teach evolution instead of "intelligent design."  I like that our current President is concerned about global warming.  I like the idea that I might one day have affordable health care.  I like that our current President is more concerned with protecting the working middle class than protecting the super-rich who can take care of themselves anyway.  Yes, the Obama administration may be flawed.  But the Republican agendas aren't just disturbing, they're outright terrifying to me.