Jessica mentioned yesterday that we have a shelf on our wall dedicated to comical and talented Steve Martin (with one of my favorite con artist movies Dirty Rotten Scoundrels). What she didn’t tell you was that we also have a shelf–a shrine, perhaps–of Bruce Willis titles as well. We do love our themed displays here at Moviecycle.
First up is possibly my favorite Bruce Willis movie of all time: Hudson Hawk. Hawk is a highly skilled cat-burglar who finds himself in the middle of a scheme to steal several famous DaVinci pieces in an attempt to turn iron into gold. Over-the-top performances and cartoon antics abound. And singing!
Next, we’ve got three out of four of the Die Hard series: Die Hard, Die Hard With A Vengeance and Live Free Or Die Hard. In my not entirely humble opinion, the Die Hard series is the finest action franchise ever created (and I hear rumors of a fifth installment!).
Speaking of fifth, Bruce takes his wise-cracking tough-guy cop act to the future in The Fifth Element, where he becomes embroiled in a frantic race to save humanity. “Leeloo Dallas mul-ti-pass.”
In The Last Man Standing, Bruce is John Smith, gun-for-hire on the run from whatever the last thing he was into, when he comes across a town ravaged by two warring gangs, one Irish, one Italian. He takes the opportunity to work them against each other for profit and shoots the town to bits in the process in this remake of A Fistful Of Dollars, which was a remake of Kurosawa’s Yojimbo. Good times.
In The Whole Nine Yards, Bruce is Jimmy “The Tulip” Teduski, mob hitman-turned-informant trying to lay low in a suburban neighborhood, until his next-door neighbor (Matthew Perry in a not-too annoying role, really) is convinced to turn Jimmy in to his former boss. Double- and triple-crosses ensue (and a sequel that was pretty fun, too). Plus Kevin Pollak and Amanda Peet!
Bruce returns as a hitman–this time called Mr. Goodkat–in the darkly hilarious and severely under-appreciated Lucky # Slevin. Also starring Josh Hartnett, Stanley Tucci, Morgan Freeman, Ben Kingsley and the ever adorable Lucy Liu.
So that’s our Bruce Willis shrine. As an added bonus, I notice that Bandits is also on another shelf on the new trades wall. Co-starring Billy Bob Thornton and Cate Blanchet, this loosely-fact-based crime spree movie is also a joy to watch.
Tuesday is new release day and today we’ve got just one title on the board: Cirque du Freak: The Vampire’s Assistant starring John C. Riley (!) as a vampire with one of the coolest names I’ve heard in a while: Larten Crepsley. The notion of a vampire who travels in a circus side-show makes me want to see this one.
We have also received a pretty good batch of games recently, including Fight Night Round 4, MLB 08: The Show and Assassin’s Creed for the Playstation 3; Thief: Deadly Shadows, High Rollers Casino, Morrowind, Halo, Halo 2 (in the special edition packaging) and Jade Empire for the XBOX; Project Gotham Racing 3, Fallout 3, Oblivion game of the year edition, Halo Wars and Perfect Dark Zero (also in the special edition packaging) for the X360.
We have a whole shelf of Steve Martin for your viewing pleasure!
Man of many talents: comedian, banjo player, writer….er…comedian!
“Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” – starring Martin and Michael Caine as con men on the French Riviera competing over an American soap heiress.
“Novocaine” – Martin stars as a straight and narrow dentist who becomes involved in sex, drugs and murder! Also starring Helena Bonham Carter and Laura Dern.
“The Lonely Guy” – Steve in the Big Apple with his sidekick, Charles Grodin trying to have a successful social life with poor results. Then Martin’s character writes a book on loneliness that changes all the rules!
“L.A. Story” – A great pic that stars Martin as Harris Telemacher, a wacky TV weatherman who one day gets life changing advice from an electronic freeway sign. Bizarre, but gets that L.A. lifestyle of the early 90’s down perfectly.
“Father of the Bride” – a remake of the 1950 Spencer Tracy classic that has Martin in the role of the dad losing his baby girl and his sanity while planning his daughter’s wedding. Great roles from Diane Keaton and Martin Short too.
“Bowfinger” – Martin plays Bobby Bowfinger, a terrible Hollywood director who uses the famous actor, Kit Ramsey’s (Eddie Murphy) nerdy brother to help him achieve a hit.
“Parenthood” – Martin with an all star cast playing one big dysfunctional family trying to figure out how to get along.
“Roxanne” – Steve Martin playing fire chief C.D. Bales. A man with a witty tongue, a biting sense of humor, and a HUGE nose who tries to win the heart of beautiful astronomy student, Roxanne (Daryl Hannah). A take on the play Cyrano de Bergerac.