Thanks for the history on HH. I didn’t realize all the issues its production suffered.

I think Unbreakable and The Story of Us are some of Willis’s best moments. Color of Night = shit, I couldn’t agree more.

Jim: I forgot that Willis was in Nobody’s Fool. Good call on his part. I also forgot all about Color of Night. What a piece of shit! That said, I think a lot of critics don’t understand that being a movie star is a contract job. Most of the time they’re just trying to earn a living, do something interesting maybe and pray it all works out. Thanks for visiting and commenting!

Peter: Almond Joy’s famous last words: “This is what I get for darting a nun!” Daniel Waters knows how to give a character an entrance and an exit. Everything in the middle is a disaster, but thanks for reminding me that Waters wrote the finale to be a break-in of the Kremlin. I think the movie looks kind of dingy and cheap myself, but I have never seen anything directed by Michael Lehmann that looked good.

Patricia: Thanks for summarizing my sentiments exactly. The more subdued the character and the stronger the director, the better Willis is. I like his performance in Unbreakable particularly. As the class clown, he wears out his welcome fast. It’s good to see you not corrupt your administration by awarding Hudson Hawk amnesty!

The movie at least has that line, I’ll give it that much. I read an earlier draft years and years ago that was considerably different. When Coburn and the Candy Bars burst in with a newspaper that has an article about a heist they pulled? Yeah, that was an entire setpiece involving all the characters. So there were a lot of changes. Maybe I’ll take another look at the movie someday, because it just seems like the sort of thing I should go for. Every time I’ve seen it I want to like it more than I do but it just never feels like they pulled off the tone they were going for. It sure looks expensive, I just never thought it was very funny.

Willis appeared in one classic in between “Hawk” and “Fifth Element”—”Pulp Fiction,” and I thought he was the best thing in it—and one very good film in a small part in “Nobody’s Fool”(again he was terrific in it, but it was Newman’s movie)so, what are the other classics in this mine-filed? “Billy Bathgate,” “Death Becomes Her,” “The Last Boy Scout,” “Loaded Weapon 1,” “Striking Distance,” “North,” “Die Hard: With a Vengeance,” “Color of Night,” “Last Man Standing,” and “Beavis and Butthead Do America.”

I think Willis is a great actor with lousy taste in movies.

That’s what I’d call bouncing back from a flop. Great post as ever, Joe.