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Page A-14 — Shelton-Mason County Thursday, April 14, 2022
Willis;"Die Hard’ trilogy ranks as his best movies
continued from page A-13
victimize first, an unattended Butch
breaks free from his bonds, and even
reaches the open doorway to the
pair’s lair, when he hears Marsellus’
screams.
After blowing up at, and apologiz-
ing to, his adorable French girlfriend
Fabienne (Maria de Medeiros) for for-
getting his watch at their apartment,
then shooting hitman Vincent Vega
(John Travolta) with his own gun at
that apartment, Butch has every rea-
son to abandon Marsellus, who wants
him dead for not throwing his boxing
match.
Except Butch only inherited his
watch because a prisoner of war in
Vietnam (Christopher Walken) re—
fused to break faith with Butch’s
father as a fellow captive. Butch res-
cues Marsellus, earning the respect
of his former foe, plus a reprieve from
his retribution.
4. David Dunn, “Unbreakable”
trilogy (2000-2019) ,
Whether you follow the Marvel
Cinematic Universe or the DC Ex-
tended Universe, David Dunn is your
John the Baptist. “Unbreakable” pre-
miered theatrically only four months
after the first “X-Men” film in 2000,
back when big-screen superheroes
were still considered a gamble, but
I M. Night Shyamalan was always a
true believer. He explicitly,
repeatedly and reverently references '
comics, as an art form and mythos,
throughout both “Unbreakable” and
“Glass” in
Shyamalan cast David Dunn as a
neo-Superman by applying a stylistic
“realism” to comics tropes, giving
David an alliterative secret identity
like Clark Kent, a Kryptonite-level
weakness to water, and a brilliant
best friend turned archenemy like
Lex Luthor. Meanwhile, Willis com-
mitted to investing as much somber
fallibility into the character as any
Zack Snyder hero with feet of clay,
without ever smirking or winking at
the audience.
David’s ignominious drowning in
“Glass” nonetheless leads humanity
to the metafictional revelation that
superheroes can exist even in the
most constrained visions of “the real
world,” which Shyamalan depicts as a
triumph over covert forces conspiring
to preserve a suppressive prevailing
social order throughout civilization’s
history.
3. James Cole, “12 Monkeys”
(1995)
In 2035, James Cole is an antiso.
cial convicted criminal within the un-
derground technocratic society that
remains of the human race, 5 billion
of whom died of a plague from 1996-
1997 , so the state scientists “volun-
teer” Cole to trace the virus’ origins
by traveling back in time. In 1990,
James Cole is a violent, delusional
patient at a Baltimore mental hospi-
tal, where his claims of coming from
the future catch the attention of Dr.
Kathryn Railly (Madeleine Stowe),
who suspects he’s been institutional-
ized before, and fellow mental patient
Jeffrey Goines (Brad Pitt), whose en-
vironmental extremism seems to feed
off James’ predictions of humanity’s
fate.
Each time, James dreams of a
Lets Make a. Diner!
Tools: Ruler, pencil, scissors, craft knife, paint brushes.
Materials: Cardboard, Styrofoam, milk pulls, bottle caps, bendy straws, ,
masking tape, sand, school glue, toothpicks, craft sticks, paint.
Difficulty: Moderate Cost: About "$1, including paint and glue.
Time: 1 to 3 hours or more, depending on the level of detail.
Visit www.masoncounty.com and
click on the Crafty Time link,
www.craftytimewithdave.com, ‘
for more ideas!
9 by Dave Pierik for the
Shelton—Mason County Journal.
r'.,Wm;fihak¢s'and,
young boy witnessing an armed man
shooting? Being shot? — in an air-
port, as a distraught woman rushes
to his side. Each time, Cole awakens
to wonder how many of his dreams
and dismissed delusions are actually ‘
memories, and how many of his as-
sumed memories are instead dreams
and delusions.
Willis plays Cole as disquietingly
childlike, emotionally frozen at the
age of his worst trauma, as the boy
in the airport, when his World (and
ours) ended.
David Addison Jr., “Moon-
lighting” (1985-1989)
Describing “Moonlighting” as a
romantic dramedy about the inves-
tigative partners-of the Blue Moon
Detective Agency is as technically
accurate as describing “Community”
as a sitcom about a study group at
Greendale Community College.
Cybill Shepherd and Willis
starred as Sleuths Madelyn “Mad-
die” Hayes and David Addison, who
solved inventive mysteries, traded
snappy banter, parodied pop culture
and stirred up simmering romance.
Alongside series creator Glenn Gor-
don Caron, they resurrected the How-
ard Hawks-style screwball comedy,
while pioneering new frontiers of self-
aware, fourth wall-breaking satire.
If you’ve avidly followed any witty,
bickering TV couple with unresolved
sexual tension betWeen them since
the ’805, your favorites were likely.
inspired by the cocky, chauvinis-‘
tic David and his no-bull boss-lady
Maddie. Reagan-era Willis’ rough-
hewn, unreconstructed charm still
turns let century women’s heads,
By Dave Pierik
and the onscreen heat he generated
with Shepherd, culminating in their
characters’ hookup in the 1987 third-
season episode “I Am Curious Mad—
, die,” was such lightning in a bottle
that even shows from the past decade
— including “Castle,” “New Girl,”
“Bones” and “Brooklyn Nine-Nine”
— have agonized to avoid the “Moon-
lighting Curse,” of smothering their
couples’ fires by letting them connect.
1. John McClane, “Die Hard”
trilogy (1988-1995)
I’m excluding the fourth and fifth
“Die Hard” films for John McClane,
since those installments arguably
detract from the character’s ranking
among Willis’ best roles.
“Die Hard emulated the origi-
nal too much, while “Die Hard with
a Vengeance” negated the progress
John and Holly made in their mar-
riage over the first two films, but both
sequels stayed true to portraying ’
John McClane as a solidly competent,
surprisingly clever cop who’s only in-
frequently been forced to deal with
international terrorism or ambitious,
elaborate heists. McClane thinks on
his feet fast enough to cover for most
of what he doesn’t already know, and
while he’s prone to stumbling over his
own stubborn pride, he’s ultimately
smart and caring enough to recognize
he needs to be more supportive of his
wife.
Like Peter Parker, John McClane
is not only the everyday guy we could
see ourselves being in extraordinary
circumstances, but also the heroic
man of action we hope our loved ones
would be able to depend upon in a
crisis. ‘
Shelton-Mason County Journal
want