Live Free Or Die Hard
I almost entitled this Live Free or Die Bored. That’s maybe a little strong. I liked the first three quarters of this movie a lot. It had a clever threat, the kid who plays the Mac in the Apple commercials was very appealing. Bruce Willis has aged really well, and I love the air of world weariness coupled with an insoucient attitude. But then we got to the semi-truck, and the jet, and the missiles and the freeway collapsing, and the jet crashing, and the vast explosion, and well… I checked out. What made the first Die Hard movie so brilliant was the realism of the action. There was one great big explosion set piece and the rest was a man alone and frightened and being clever.
This tendency to have to keep topping last summer’s blockbuster is making movies less and less interesting. It happens in prose too. I gather that the later Laura K. Hamilton vampire books have just become orgies of S&M vampire sex.
Action/violence like S&M vampire sex should be used sparingly like a good spice.
So, that being said I’ll probably continue to be part of the problem rather than the solution and go see TRANSFORMERS. 
Melinda
July 4th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Can I admit that I have absolutely no interest in watching this movie? And that I am a huge Die Hard fan?
I mean, I was already skeptical when it was first announced, but after I read about how it was Bowdlerized in a cynical move by the studio to re-edit it down to a PG13, I knew I’d never see it.
Die Hard is grown up, R rated fun. Not some lame ass Michael Bay wannabe PG13 crap.
Call it “Die Limp, with a sellout”
July 4th, 2007 at 11:48 am
I’m not going to start the Anita series (despite the first books obvioulsy being good) because I know I will give up on it. I’ve given up on series* several times, but at least I didn’t know in advance that I would.
Auel, halfway during book 4: Ayla and Jondalar walk. A and J have sex, A and J meet new people, A and J have sex …. and badly written sex, imho.
Gabaldon, also book 4.: She got bogged down in details; everything interesting she read had to go into the books, and there was too much sex that didn’t do anything for the characterization or plot.
To mention just two.
I’m not going to write series with the same characters over several books. I know I’ll get bored of them at some point. And then I’d just start blowing things up.
July 4th, 2007 at 8:22 pm
My ex-girlfriend once told me that she doesn’t like action movies because they have a ridiculous need to top themselves even over the course of a single film, so that the final sequence — or set-piece — gets crazily loud and manic. The logic obviously (in the filmmakers’ minds) is that louder and more manic translates to a viewer being more excited, but, as you say, it really just makes a viewer check out. At a certain point, it becomes tedious.
Ever since she said that, I’ve never been able to look at action movies the same way, and am always VERY appreciative of the ones that are able to avoid this trap. (And I get very annoyed when even something like Batman Begins — which was SO careful throughout its first 2 hours to build the story logically and naturalistically — ends with a big, loud, un-Batman-like sequence involving an elevated train exploding right before it can crash into a huge skyscraper.)
July 5th, 2007 at 9:36 am
On an unrelated note, there’s a fun little meme going round, the Rockin’ Girl Blogger awards. I gave you one, because yes, you rock
and if you like, you can spread the love and nominate 5 others.
July 6th, 2007 at 11:30 pm
I agree with Melinda; the first 2/3 was not bad at all, the last 1/3 was ho-hum giant explosions.