Podcasts about de bont

AKAPAD the Film Buff talking about 1996's Twister and what it was like to first see this film and get caught up in the effects and insanely entertaining characters. Director Jan de Bont brings a texture and color to this film that immediately captures you and makes you forget, you're watching a movie.Twister is a collaboration unlike many high-budget Hollywood tentpoles, the artistry across the board is something Jan de Bont was trained to execute, and all of it is on screen. A little more about Twister 1996 Twister: A Whirlwind of Thrills In the heartland of America, where vast skies meet endless fields, a tempest brews, both in nature and in the human spirit. "Twister," a high-octane, adrenaline-fueled spectacle, catapults us into the turbulent world of storm chasing. Directed by Jan de Bont, this 1996 cinematic tour de force stars Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton as estranged meteorologists whose passion for deciphering the enigmatic power of tornadoes is rivaled only by their unresolved personal storms. As the film opens, we are thrust into the eye of the storm—literally. De Bont's masterful use of cutting-edge CGI and practical effects ensures that every gust, every twister, is palpably real. The roaring winds and darkened skies are characters in their own right, menacing and magnificent, serving as a backdrop to a story as fierce as the natural disasters it portrays. Hunt delivers a performance as Dr. Jo Harding, a tenacious scientist driven by a haunting childhood memory of a killer tornado. Her quest is not just professional but deeply personal, adding layers of intensity to her interactions with Paxton's Bill Harding, her estranged husband. Paxton, with his trademark everyman charm, balances Hunt's intensity, grounding the film's whirlwind of emotions with a steady resolve. The supporting cast, including a scene-stealing Philip Seymour Hoffman, provides moments of levity and camaraderie, a necessary respite from the relentless tension. As the team of storm chasers embarks on their perilous journey, the stakes are raised with each monstrous funnel cloud that forms. Their mission? To deploy a revolutionary device that could unravel the mysteries of tornado formation and save countless lives. "Twister" is not just a film; it's an experience—a sensory overload that leaves you gripping the edge of your seat. It captures the raw, untamed beauty of nature's fury while exploring the equally complex landscapes of human relationships. In true Esquire fashion, it's a blend of grit and grace, of spectacle and subtlety. Whether you're a meteorological enthusiast or simply a thrill-seeker, "Twister" offers a cinematic ride that is as electrifying as the storms it portrays. It's a reminder that in the face of nature's most formidable forces, the human spirit's quest for understanding and connection remains unyielding.

AKAPAD the Film Buff talking about 1996's Twister and what it was like to first see this film and get caught up in the effects and insanely entertaining characters. Director Jan de Bont brings a texture and color to this film that immediately captures you and makes you forget, you're watching a movie.Twister is a collaboration unlike many high-budget Hollywood tentpoles, the artistry across the board is something Jan de Bont was trained to execute, and all of it is on screen. A little more about Twister 1996Twister: A Whirlwind of Thrills In the heartland of America, where vast skies meet endless fields, a tempest brews, both in nature and in the human spirit. "Twister," a high-octane, adrenaline-fueled spectacle, catapults us into the turbulent world of storm chasing. Directed by Jan de Bont, this 1996 cinematic tour de force stars Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton as estranged meteorologists whose passion for deciphering the enigmatic power of tornadoes is rivaled only by their unresolved personal storms. As the film opens, we are thrust into the eye of the storm—literally. De Bont's masterful use of cutting-edge CGI and practical effects ensures that every gust, every twister, is palpably real. The roaring winds and darkened skies are characters in their own right, menacing and magnificent, serving as a backdrop to a story as fierce as the natural disasters it portrays. Hunt delivers a performance as Dr. Jo Harding, a tenacious scientist driven by a haunting childhood memory of a killer tornado. Her quest is not just professional but deeply personal, adding layers of intensity to her interactions with Paxton's Bill Harding, her estranged husband. Paxton, with his trademark everyman charm, balances Hunt's intensity, grounding the film's whirlwind of emotions with a steady resolve. The supporting cast, including a scene-stealing Philip Seymour Hoffman, provides moments of levity and camaraderie, a necessary respite from the relentless tension. As the team of storm chasers embarks on their perilous journey, the stakes are raised with each monstrous funnel cloud that forms. Their mission? To deploy a revolutionary device that could unravel the mysteries of tornado formation and save countless lives. "Twister" is not just a film; it's an experience—a sensory overload that leaves you gripping the edge of your seat. It captures the raw, untamed beauty of nature's fury while exploring the equally complex landscapes of human relationships. In true Esquire fashion, it's a blend of grit and grace, of spectacle and subtlety. Whether you're a meteorological enthusiast or simply a thrill-seeker, "Twister" offers a cinematic ride that is as electrifying as the storms it portrays. It's a reminder that in the face of nature's most formidable forces, the human spirit's quest for understanding and connection remains unyielding.

Van de Belastingdienst mag worden verwacht dat de feiten zuiver worden vastgesteld en het recht objectief wordt toegepast. Maar de praktijk wijst uit dat dit niet in alle gevallen gebeurt. En wanneer er aan de kant de Belastingdienst of het Openbaar Ministerie een vermoeden bestaat van een strafbaar feit, dan kunnen de opsporingsmethoden die daarop volgen een vergaande inbreuk maken op vrijheden en de privacy van burgers. In beide gevallen is het hebben van professionele bijstand vanaf het eerste moment dan geen overbodige luxe. In deze RB Podcast gaat het dus over de wereld van fiscale geschillen en Financiële strafzaken. In gesprek met prof. mr. Guido de Bont, oprichter van De Bont Advocaten in Amsterdam en hoogleraar formeel belastingrecht aan de Erasmus Universiteit Rotterdam. En natuurlijk met Sylvester Schenk, directeur fiscale zaken van het RB en de vaste host van de RB Podcast.

Entrevistam Eric de Bont, clown holandès que torna a Eivissa per obrir la Bont’s Escola Internacional de Clown després d’uns anys a Menorca.

How dreaming corrects weaving errors in our internal world models. Also, nightmares, the collective unconscious, and does artificial intelligence have one too? A discussion about what dreams have to say about the nature of reality. Harry de Bont speaks with Katherine about the many facets of what he calls cybernetic dreaming. BIO: With a background in both Electrical Engineering and Psychology, Harry de Bont’s approach to dreams lies at the nexus of technology and psychology, what he calls the cybernetic perspective on dreams. Today, Harry would like to explore how our dreams reflect and are shaped by the ever-evolving intersection of consciousness with the universe. Find our guest at: MonadCompany.nl, IG: @harrydebont_, LI: @harry-de-bont-9b5217 This show, episode number 254, was recorded during a live broadcast on April 13, 2024 at KSQD.org, community radio of Santa Cruz. Intro and outro music by Mood Science. Ambient music new every week by Rick Kleffel. Archived music can be found at Pandemiad.com. Many thanks to Rick Kleffel for also engineering the show. SHARE A DREAM FOR THE SHOW or a question by emailing Katherine Bell at katherine@ksqd.org. Follow on FB and IG @ExperientialDreamwork #thedreamjournal. To learn more or to inquire about exploring your own dreams go to ExperientialDreamwork.com. The Dream Journal is produced at and airs on KSQD Santa Cruz, 90.7 FM. Catch it streaming LIVE at KSQD.org 10-11am Pacific Time on Saturdays. Call or text with your dreams or questions at 831-900-5773 or email at onair@ksqd.org. Podcasts are available on all major podcast platforms released the Monday following the live show. The complete KSQD Dream Journal podcast page can be found at ksqd.org/the-dream-journal/. Now also available on PRX at Exchange.prx.org/series/45206-the-dream-journal Thanks for being a Dream Journal listener! Available on all major podcast platforms. Rate it, review it, subscribe and tell your friends.

Het zijn moeilijke tijden voor de recyclebranche. De afvalstroom slinkt en nieuwplastic is spotgoedkoop. Afval- en recyclingbedrijf Renewi voelt dat ook maar toch blijft het investeren in een circulaire toekomst.     Otto de Bont, topman van Renewi is te gast in BNR Zakendoen.  Speciale gast: Klaas Knot  Een centrale bank is politiek onafhankelijk, maar een economie niet. Dat is de boodschap die De Nederlandsche Bank achterlaat op het bordes van de formerende partijen.  Natuurlijk staat het er niet zo letterlijk, maar het jaarverslag van president Klaas Knot en zijn medewerkers spreekt boekdelen. Het gaat “best goed” met de Nederlandse economie en de inflatie wordt bedwongen, maar als Nederland niet uitkijkt, breekt het door begrotingsnormen van de Europese Unie en kan Nederland niet nóg een corona- of energiecrisis aan.  Tegelijkertijd groeit de beroepsbevolking nog amper en de productiviteit van die beroepsbevolking stijgt ook maar zelden. Dat betekent dat Nederland keuzes zal moeten maken. Niet alles kan overal, schrijft DNB.   In ‘De top van Nederland' een uitgebreid gesprek met Klaas Knot, president van De Nederlandsche Bank.  Macro met Mujagic  Elke dag een intrigerende gedachtewisseling over de stand van de macro-economie. Op maandag en vrijdag gaat presentator Thomas van Zijl in gesprek met econoom Arnoud Boot, de rest van de week praat Van Zijl met econoom Edin Mujagić.  Boardoompanel  Gaat Annemarie Jorritsma als nieuwe voorzitter van de Raad van Toezicht, Accell redden? En: leveren de stakingen van NXP dermate veel imagoschade op dat het bedrijf dreigt te stoppen met investering in Nederland. Dat en meer bespreken we om 11.10 in het boardroompanel met: Hélène Vletter – van Dort hoogleraar Financieel recht en Governance en commissaris bij onder ander Nationale Nederland en Hugo Reumkens partner en advocaat bij Van Doorne en voorzitter van de Raad van Toeizcht van de Tilburg University  Contact & Abonneren  BNR Zakendoen zendt elke werkdag live uit van 11:00 tot 13:30 uur. Je kunt de redactie bereiken via e-mail.   Abonneren op de podcast van BNR Zakendoen kan via bnr.nl/zakendoen, of via Apple Podcast en Spotify. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Met de iTanks Podcast Techniektrots willen we de mensen die werken in de industrie een gezicht, of in ieder geval een stem geven en met hen bespreken waarom zij trots zijn op hun rol in de techniek. In deze aflevering spreken wij met Sandra de Bont, Directeur van VOTOB Academy, over hoe zij met het opleidingsinstituut graag nieuwe mensen verwelkomt in de wereld van de tankopslag en ervoor wil zorgen dat mensen die in de industrie werken daadwerkelijk blij van hun werk worden.  

LECTURE A DEUX VOIX, mardi et vendredi à 10h et 16h.Chronique littéraire animée par Valère-Marie Marchand. La chronique "Au Fil des Pages" change de nom et devient "Lecture à deux voix", car elle sera consacrée désormais à deux romans que Valère-Marie Marchand nous présente. Cette semaine, Valère-Marie nous parle des livres "Cinq Jours de Bonté" de Michel Lambert (L'Herbier - Le Beau Jardin) & "Un Pas de Deux" de Javier Santiso (Gallimard).

Historicus Raf de Bont van de Universiteit Maastricht is gefascineerd door de relatie tussen mens en dier. Hij onderzoekt onder andere hoe wilde dieren in de afgelopen 150 jaar door ons mensen zijn verplaatst en wat dat voor effect heeft gehad. Met al die bemoeienis van ons mensen is de grotere vraag misschien wel: bestaat een echt wild dier nog wel? En kun je het überhaupt nog hebben over 'de wilde natuur' als er nergens op aarde meer een plekje is dat niet door ons is beïnvloed? Lees hier meer over het grotere project waar De Bont aan meewerkt: Moving Animals. Of bekijk hier een filmpje: Why historians should be interested in animals.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

De zomertour van Een Tikkie naar het Zuiden strijkt deze week neer in het pittoreske Hoeven, waar we aan de keukentafel van Ferry de Bont mochten aanschuiven. Samen met Ferry (en hond Milo) wordt al het nieuws van de afgelopen week besproken, waaronder de uitgedunde selectie die aan de voorbereiding in begonnen, het falen van de medische staf, het speelthema en het vele nieuws over oud-spelers van NAC.

Podcast van de antwoorden, episode 93. Stef de Bont is te gast. We namen een week eerder op, dus wat voorspiegelingen over Roma - Feyenoord, neemt u ons vooral de maat waar we mis zitten. Dat doen wij ook met liefde als de analisten mis zitten. Stef de Bont heeft het met ons over zijn tijd bij Vitesse, en hoe hij de gekte daar toen heeft zitten ontwaren. Hoe de media er op doken toen hij onthullingen deed. Wat doe je als je wordt vergeten door de talkshow waar je te gast zou zijn? Stef kwam in een soort comedy terecht. Wat doe je dan als journalist? Wie is er eigenlijk überhaupt geïnteresseerd in Vitesse-verhalen buiten de VI-PRO familie? Verder nog analyses over Mourinho, verhalenverteller Maarten Ducrot en de Marathon (de Mooiste...) Vragen? Twitter! Meer FC Mediacircus? www.fcmediacircus.nl

Cliquez sur Play pour écouter le dernier Podcast de l'émission « En Amour »! Dans cet épisode, on explore ce qu'est la bonté dans le cadre d'une relation intime, mais aussi pourquoi et comment la cultiver! La bonté n'est que rarement mentionné et encore moins comprise, alors essayons-nous à mettre un peu de lumière dessus. Et surtout de comprendre l'importance de la bonté pour des relations amoureuses plus saines, sereines, aimantes et douces! Bonne écoute! Pour écouter le podcast , vous pouvez…Continue reading Podcast #102: Planter des graines de bonté, pour récolter de l'amour dans son couple L'article Podcast #102: Planter des graines de bonté, pour récolter de l'amour dans son couple est apparu en premier sur Graine De Coeur.

Eindelijk mocht het heugelijke nieuws dan naar buiten! Dominique de Bont is één van de kandidaten in de zoektocht naar Danny & Sandy, de twee hoofdrollen die nog toegevoegd moeten worden aan de cast van de musical Grease die in 2023 in een vernieuwde versie op de planken zal komen. Dominique vertelde hoe blij ze was en hoe het selectieproces verliep. Op dit moment staat ze nog enkele avonden als hofdame in Soldaat van Oranje en eerder had ze een hoofdrol in Zodiac en een rol in Fun Home! Kijk vanaf 23 december naar Op Zoek naar Danny & Sandy bij AVROTROS op NPO1 vanaf 20.30 uur. Foto: AVROTROS

Dans cette mini-série "Les lectures de Louie", vous allez entendre quatre voix qui font notre studio au quotidien.Cet épisode a été diffusé une première fois le 9 décembre 2021.Brune Bottero présente Émotions tous les quinze jours et elle a signé la deuxième saison de Entre, avec Lucien 11 ans et Julie 8 ans. Elle nous fait découvrir sa bibliothèque, pleine de romans et de livres de littérature jeunesse, ces livres pour lesquels elle ressent, des années après, une “émotion intacte”, qui lui font “un nœud à la gorge tout à fait spécial”. Pour cet épisode de notre hors-série de fin d'année, elle a choisi de nous parler d'un livre qui “transmet cette magie de Noël”, puisqu'il raconte une histoire empreinte d'une vraie bonté : Corps et âme de Franck Conroy. L'histoire de Claude, petit garçon de six ans qui trouve un jour un piano et devient, seul, un prodige.En cette période, c'est un roman “lumineux” et “qui fait beaucoup de bien” que Brune Bottero veut nous faire découvrir. Elle veut nous réconcilier avec les histoires de héros “bons” qui, elles aussi, peuvent faire de bons romans.Le Book Club est un podcast présenté par Agathe Le Taillandier. Brune Bottero répond aux questions de la journaliste Marjolaine Roget. Soukaïna Qabbal était à l'édition et à la coordination du Book Club. Marjolaine Roget a fait le montage de cet épisode et Jean-Baptiste Aubonnet a réalisé le mixage. Hébergé par Acast. Visitez acast.com/privacy pour plus d'informations.

In a special episode of Film Stories, Simon chats to Jan De Bont about his extensive movie career.They chat about his work as cinematographer on movies as varied as Die Hard, Flatliners, The Hunt For Red October and Black Rain. They chat too about De Bont nearly having his face fully ripped off by a wild animal while shooting Roar. And then there's his work as a director, specifically Speed and Twister.Flatliners has just been released by Arrow on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray disc, and is available now. Our GDPR privacy policy was updated on August 8, 2022. Visit acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dans ce nouvel épisode, nous rencontrons Faysal, un humain incroyable qui nous lance un défi magique. Ce défi, c'est l'acte de bonté aléatoire. Mais avant cela, découvrons l'histoire de Faysal : sa chute, comment il s'est relevé et surtout, comme il s'est retrouvé. Durant son voyage à la découverte de lui-même, il se lance un défi : faire plaisir à autrui tout en se faisant plaisir à lui-même. Laissez-vous inspirer par son histoire !

Dans notre série de l'été "En marche avec Dieu", Silvain Dupertuis, de l'Eglise Evangélique de Meyrin commente les textes de Michée 6:8 et Matthieu 5:3-10. Pour en savoir plus sur nous ou nous rejoindre lors d'un prochain culte, rendez-vous sur https://meyrin.epg.ch.

In deze aflevering spreken we acteurs Esmée Dekker en Yoran de Bont, bekend van verschillende musicals zoals Evita en en My fair lady. We hebben het over je sexy voelen op toneel, intieme scènes, hun grootste blunders en over de vraag: Is theater sexy?  Esmée en Yoran staan van 26 t/m 31 juli in DeLaMar met de Rocky horror show, als onderdeel van het culturele programma van Pride Amsterdam.Kijk voor actuele speellijsten en meer info op: http://delamar.nlTe gast: Esmée Dekker en Yoran de Bont Presentatoren: Isabelle Kafando en Dide VonkEditing en productie: Dide Vonk, De Makers Podcast ProductiesStudiobewerking: Sonya VosProductie en redactie: Rozemarijn van der Ven, Marit StubbéVormgeving: Naile GüngörIn opdracht van DeLaMar.

CORRECTION: Contrary to what we discuss in this episode, the thirtieth episode (planned as a potluck for Arrival) will release in August, not July. We will save the alien theme and listener vote for that month. July's theme will be announced on Instagram soon. ---  Tim & Tay close out (early career) Keanu month with the film that cemented him as an action star willing to do his own stunts: Speed. SynopsisA terrorist plants a bomb on bus, armed to explode the second it drops below 50/mph. Can hotshot LAPD officer Jack Traven keep the bus at speed, defuse the bomb, and save the innocent passengers along for the ride? Starring Keanu Reeves Sandra Bullock and Dennis Hopper, Speed was directed by Jan de Bont, and premiered June 10, 1994. Speed is available to stream on Disney+.Scene  [34:16-40:15]After receiving word about a bomb on a public transport bus, Jack steals a car in order to track the bus down.7:00 - Die Hard (McTiernan, 1988)8 :00- Yost's script20:00 - Terminator 2 (Cameron, 1991)24:00 - Development of Annie's character25:30 - Miss Congeniality (Petrie, 2000)28:00 - PG-13 rules concerning the "f word"33:00 - Camera destroyed during bus jump (via DVD commentary)40:00 - Speed 2 (de Bont, 1997)54:30 - Shang Chi bus fight58:00 - Snyder and the "dream" lens1:02:00 - Patrick Fischler1:05:00 - Kurosawa's runaway train concept1:06:00 - Tarantino's top moviesRecommendationsTim: Unstoppable (Scott, 2010) — stream on Disney+Tay: The Running Man (Glaser, 1987) — stream on TubiAll links are verified at the time of publication and based on availability in Canada.

Will God answer your prayer if you don't end with, "In Jesus' name, Amen?" Learn what praying in the name of Jesus really means. I taught this week on the call of Abraham and the development of God's missionary call through the nation of Israel as they were responsible to communicate the truth of God to the cultures around them. They were given that great commission. The great commission didn't start in Matthew 28. It started with Abraham in Genesis 12 —the first three verses there —Abraham, chosen by God to raise up a nation who would then be God's priests to the world so that they would be a blessing to all of the nations. They had a unique role in the great monotheistic religion. The Jews were supposed to reflect morality to the world. Israel was to witness to the name of God. When they talked about the name of God and witnessing to God's name, that does not mean that they were to let everybody know what they called God, "Yahweh." Their goal wasn't to cover the countryside with evangelists who just let everybody know what the right word for God was. It meant something different. ☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆☆ https://linktr.ee/jacksonlibon --------------------------------------------------- #realtalk #face #instagram #amour #take #couple #dance #dancers #vogue #voguedqnce #garden #tiktok #psychology #beyou #near #love #foryou #money #ForYouPizza #fyp #irobot #theend #pups #TikToker #couplegoals #famille #relation #doudou #youtube #twitter #tiktokers #love #reeĺs #shorts #instagood #follow #like #ouy #oyu #babyshark #lilnasx #girl #happybirthday #movie #nbayoungboy #deviance #autotrader #trading #khan #academy #carter #carguru #ancestry #accords #abc #news #bts #cbs #huru #bluebook #socialmedia #whatsapp #music #google #photography #memes #marketing #india #followforfollowback #likeforlikes #a #insta #fashion #k #trending #digitalmarketing #covid #o #snapchat #socialmediamarketing

Pop Quiz, Hotshot. Andy Ross watches Jan De Bont's Speed (1994) for the first time. What does he think? What... does he think? Subscribe on Apple Podcasts / Stitcher Radio / Spotify / Google Podcasts / Amazon Podcasts   CREDITS   Talking Heads:   host: James David Patrick (@007hertzrumble) guest: Andy Ross (@ThatAndyRoss)   Music Contained in this Podcast:   Preacher Boy – “Shamedown” 

In deze eerste aflevering van Hekkensluiters bespreekt Yordi Yamali met Michel Doodeman en Stef de Bont onder andere de opvallende zege van PEC Zwolle, de Afrika Cup en een Nederlands wonderverhaal in wording op Cyprus. Verder schuift Derby County-fan Niels Verbree aan om ons bij te praten over de situatie bij zijn club.Hekkensluiters is een podcast van Dag en Nacht Media. Onze showrunner is Jan Bavinck, de montage werd gedaan door Jeroen Sturing en het artwork is van Bos Nooij. Hekkensluiters wordt mede mogelijk gemaakt door TOTO. Speel bewust, 18+.Zie het privacybeleid op https://art19.com/privacy en de privacyverklaring van Californië op https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Si vous aimez le Book Club, vous allez dévorer Une bibliothèque féministe, notre livre co-édité avec les Editions de l'Iconoclaste, dans lequel Agathe Le Taillandier rassemble 18 femmes : chacune signe un texte dans lequel elle partage sa lecture fondatrice dans son parcours féministe. Un livre qui donne envie d'en lire plein d'autres que vous trouverez dans toutes les bonnes librairies. Et si vous souhaitez avoir accès à des épisodes exclusifs ainsi qu'aux coulisses de la création de nos podcasts (avant-premières de nos nouveaux podcasts, rencontres en ligne, soirées de lancement, bonus inédits...) vous pouvez vous abonner au Club Louie, à partir de 5 euros par mois ! Dans les quatre prochains épisodes du Book Club, vous allez entendre quatre voix qui font notre studio au quotidien. La première est celle de Brune Bottero. Elle présente Émotions tous les quinze jours et a signé la deuxième saison de Entre, avec Lucien 11 ans et Julie 8 ans. Dans cet épisode, elle nous présente sa bibliothèque, pleine de romans et de livres de littérature jeunesse, ces livres pour lesquels elle ressent, des années après, une “émotion intacte”, qui lui font “un nœud à la gorge tout à fait spécial”. Pour cet épisode de notre hors-série de fin d'année, elle a choisi de nous parler d'un livre qui “transmet cette magie de Noël”, puisqu'il raconte une histoire empreinte d'une vraie bonté : Corps et âme de Franck Conroy. L'histoire de Claude, petit garçon de six ans qui trouve un jour un piano et devient, seul, un prodige.En cette période, c'est un roman “lumineux” et “qui fait beaucoup de bien” que Brune Bottero veut nous faire découvrir. Elle veut nous réconcilier avec les histoires de héros “bons” qui, elles aussi, peuvent faire de bons romans.Le Book Club est un podcast présenté par Agathe Le Taillandier. Brune Bottero répond aux questions de la journaliste Marjolaine Roget. Soukaïna Qabbal est à l'édition et à la coordination du Book Club. Marjolaine Roget a fait le montage de cet épisode et Jean-Baptiste Aubonnet a réalisé le mixage. Le Book Club est une création Louie Media aussi rendue possible grâce à Maureen Wilson, responsable éditoriale, Marion Girard, responsable de production, Charlotte Pudlowski, directrice éditoriale et Mélissa Bounoua, directrice des productions. Voir Acast.com/privacy pour les informations sur la vie privée et l'opt-out.

La bonté est un des attributs de Dieu amplement décrit par les auteurs des textes bibliques et manifestement ils en ont fait l'expérience. C'est dans cette mesure que l'on peut transmettre ce qu'on a reçu. Dieu veut vous toucher aujourd'hui, manifestant sa bonté de manière toute particulière pour vous encourager. Pour y gouter, il faut ouvrir son cœur et venir à la source. C'est le moment d'être encouragé par ces 10 minutes, bonne écoute !

Welkom bij seizoen 2 van De Twaalfde Man! In deze aflevering is NAC-supporter en tweevoudig voetbaltwitteraar van het jaar Ferry de Bont te gast. Over het (wan)beleid in Breda, verwachtingen van dit seizoen, de lusten en lasten van het zijn van een bekende NAC-supporter en het oude stadion aan de Beatrixstraat.

Op dag 11 van Vanuit de Bus gaat Lars polshoogte nemen in Breda. Het is crisis bij NAC, erger dan ooit. Wie beter dan Ferry de Bont kan ons bijpraten en eens uitleggen wat in zijn ogen de vervolgstappen zouden moeten zijn? Privacy Policy and California Privacy Notice.

In De Gegenpressing Podcast bespreken clubwatchers Yadran Blanco, Dennis Kas en Joost Blaauwhof de actualiteit rondom NAC. Aflevering 51 staat in het teken van de machtsstrijd die er in Breda gaande is tussen technisch directeur Ton Lokhoff en trainer Maurice Steijn.  Te gast zijn podcastmaker/radiomaker Marcel van Es (van BredaNU NACpraat) en Twitteraar van het Jaar Ferry de Bont. Het vijftal bespreekt het laatste nieuws. De raad van commissarissen heeft algemeen directeur Mattijs Manders namelijk de opdracht gegeven om zowel de technisch directeur als de trainer binnen boord te houden. De heren vertellen wat zij daar van vinden. Want dat de twee totaal niet op één lijn zitten, eerder lijnrecht tegenover elkaar, is duidelijk. Dus hoe Steijn en Lokhoff samen moeten gaan werken, is de grote vraag. Aan tafel gaat het ook over het interview van Manders over de onrust in Breda. Over iets meer dan een week begint de voorbereiding op het nieuwe seizoen, dat terwijl de storm volledig over Breda heen raast. Officieel liggen er nog geen oefenduels vast. Hoe denken de heren over de positie van Steijn? En over die van Manders? Wat vinden ze van de rvc? Zonder op de tong te bijten laten Van Es en De Bont hun NAC-hart spreken. En... er valt iets te winnen. We kunnen een wedstrijdshirt, gesigneerd, van Alex Schalk verloten.  Dit en meer in de 51ste aflevering van De Gegenpressing Podcast, te vinden op Instagram.  Support the show: https://krant.nl See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Mede mogelijk gemaakt door: Bluefield Kees de Kort Elke dag, even over twaalf, bespreekt presentator Thomas van Zijl met macro-econoom en commentator Kees de Kort de economische stand van zaken.Economenpanel De Europese Centrale Bank gaat nog zeker tot maart volgend jaar door met de pandemiesteun. En: de economische verhouding tussen de Verenigde Staten en China staat nog altijd onder spanning. Dat en meer bespreken we in het economenpanel met: Ester Barendregt, hoofd RaboResearch Nederland, en Steven Brakman, hoogleraar internationale economie aan de Rijksuniversiteit Groningen. Luister ook | EconomenpanelInzichtgesprek Hij nam twee weken voor de eerste lockdown het stokje over bij OneFit. Aan hem de taak om het fitness-platform door de coronacrisis te leiden. Hoe doe je dat als je de meeste medewerkers nog moet leren kiezen? Te gast is Edouard Leeuwenburg Managing Director van OneFit.Zakenpartner De Zakenpartner van deze week is Ageeth Telleman, voormalig gemeenteraadslid in Amsterdam (D66), is huidig vicevoorzitter van de Sportraad Amsterdam en werkt nu voor organisatie-adviesbureau TwynstraGudde.Contact & Abonneren BNR Zakendoen zendt elke werkdag live uit van 12:00 tot 14:00 uur. Je kunt de redactie bereiken via e-mail en Twitter. Abonneren op de podcast van BNR Zakendoen kan via bnr.nl/zakendoen, of via Apple Podcast en Spotify. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Door de lockdown produceerde een aantal sectoren misschien geen afval meer, de thuisklusser des te meer. Het zorgde voor een goed jaar voor Renewi, waardoor het bedrijf nu zelfs overweegt dividend uit te keren. In de Top van Nederland een uitgebreid gesprek met Otto de Bont, topman van afvalverwerkingsbedrijf Renewi.

Door een tekort aan karton lijkt afvalverwerker Renewi zich op te maken voor een goed jaar. Ook de heropening van de samenleving brengt extra geld in de kas voor het bedrijf. Topman Otto de Bont is te gast in BNR Zakendoen.

Cees de Bont (Dean of the School of Design and Creative Arts at Loughborough University) discusses his career inventing the Senseo coffee machine at Philips, managing design at Delft, and leading Design at Hong Kong University. We explore why emotion and dedication are essential skills in success and touching to hearts of others.

Machteld richtte in 2005 samen met Sietske van der Veldt Care for Cancer op, een stichting gericht op oncologische begeleiding in de thuissituatie. Ook startte zij Care in Company, een adviesbureau voor vragen over verzuimmanagement bij kanker. Samen met Re-turn en Stap Nu richtte Machteld het Kenniscentrum Werk & Kanker op dat waardevolle achtergrondinformatie en kennis verstrekt. In deze podcast vertelt ze over haar persoonlijke ervaring met kanker en haar drijfveren achter haar werk. Ook geeft ze tips voor het ontwikkelen van goed werkgeverschap bij kanker. Meer informatie over het werk van Machteld vind je op de volgende websites: https://careincompany.nl https://care-academy.nl https://www.kenniscentrumwerkenkanker.nl https://www.nationalekankerenwerkdag.nl

In deze aflevering niet één maar twee gasten. Met oud-speler Ali Boussaboun doen Alberto en Rogier de vertrouwde terugblik op de wedstrijd, de fantastische overwinning op Feyenoord, de eerste thuisoverwinning sinds januari 2020. Ook de op handen zijnde transfer van Milan van Ewijk naar Heerenveen en de kansen op handhaving van ADO komen ter sprake. Later in de uitzending belt Stef de Bont van Voetbal International in. Stef volgt voor VI het dossier rond de overname van de club. Uiteraard wordt er weer voorspeld voor het gevulde koek-klassement en heeft Alberto weer genoten van Tommie Beugelsdijk.

And the winner is, part 3, the meek and the merciful. By Thierry Moehr. @ Palais de Beaulieu, 14.02.2021 HD video available at vimeo.com/c3lausanne

Contre le flux mortifère des chaînes d'info en continu, l'élégant groupe de rock parisien propose d'instaurer « le jeudi des bonnes nouvelles », constitué d'authentiques trouvailles et exploits de l'espèce humaine, pour « remettre de la gaieté sur le monde ».Sur Monde nouveau, leur dernier single sorti en janvier, prélude à l'album Palais d'argile à paraître le 12 mars, les cinq allumettes mélancoliques de Feu ! Chatterton ne semblent guère consumées d'espoir concernant la survie de l'humanité dans la fournaise de l'effondrement à venir. « La glace fondait dans les Spritz, c'est à n'y comprendre rien. Tout le monde se plaignait en ville du climat subsaharien, on n'avait pas le moral, mais on répondait à tous les mots les traits d'esprit du grand serveur central. Monde nouveau, on en rêvait tous. Que savions-nous faire de nos mains ? Presque rien. »Produit par Arnaud Rebotini, ce troisième disque de soixante-six minutes, où la belle voix éraillée d'Arthur Teboul appelle à l'aide sans savoir « ni qui ni pourquoi », a été écrit avant la pandémie et son cortège quotidien de mauvaises nouvelles. Y figure une très grande chanson, Ecran Total, qui se demande « sur quel pied danser » dans un écrin club de toute beauté, symptomatique de nos enfermements (« Derrière leur écran total, les gens se régalent (…) Mais où sont les enfants et les clairières d'opale ? »), tout en étant possiblement inspirée par la révolte des Gilets Jaunes, qui rêve « de grand final, de feu de Bengale ». Au cœur de ce conte mordant, où le spectre de Léo Ferré semble s'immiscer dans une scène coupée de 120 battements par minute, on entend Arthur chanter, puis hurler : « Le grand président, sanglots de reptile, s'adresse aux sans-dents, ouais, bien à l'abri dans son palais d'argile avec tous ses descendants. Mais il pleut sur la ville et on le sait, l'argile mollit, eh oui. (…) C'est génial, on le lynche sur la place publique, on piétine le pacte civique. Ah, TU FAIS MOINS LE MALIN. ESSAIE PAS DE T'ENFUIR AVEC TES TALONNETTES À QUATRE MILLE BOULES. »En attendant de voir cette révolution à la télé, l'élégant groupe de rock parisien, en activité depuis 2011 après leur rencontre au lycée Louis-le-Grand, dont le nom renvoie au poète anglais Thomas Chatterton ayant préféré se suicider à l'arsenic à 17 ans plutôt que de mourir de faim en 1770, propose d'instaurer « le jeudi des bonnes nouvelles », un JT constitué de « faits divers de bonté », d'authentiques trouvailles et exploits de l'espèce humaine, antidote au flux mortifère des chaînes d'info en continu, le tout dans l'objectif de « remettre de la gaieté sur le monde ».Sur le pont de notre Arche, le chanteur de Feu ! Chatterton s'est donc lui-même prêté à l'exercice en sélectionnant cinq bonnes nouvelles survenues ces derniers jours, ainsi promu journaliste de la joie.Pour écouter Monde nouveau, c'est ici : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-3KQ5k7k0ws&ab_channel=FeuChattertonRéalisation : Mathieu Boudon.Image : Présentateur vedette : la légende de Ron Burgundy, d'Adam McKay (2004). See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

(Français) Café avec Spiritisme #271: La leçon de bonté - Ludiana Moreno

De locatie, het verhaal, de muziek, de prachtige effecten straks zijn de ingrediënten voor een spiksplinternieuwe musical die - met een hoop geluk - vanaf mei gaat spelen in de Koepel in Breda. Deze prachtige locatie leent zich fantastisch voor een musical over onze aarde die we langzamerhand steeds verder aan het verpesten zijn. Daar moet een stokje voor gestoken worden. In deze musical speelt naast René van Kooten, Hilke Bierman, Dennis Willekens ook Dominique de Bont. Bij ons vertelde zij waarom Zodiac zo fantastisch is. Geheel coronaproof kun je dit nieuwe spektakel geproduceerd door Peet Nieuwenhuijsen en met regie van William Spaaij straks met eigen ogen bekijken. Meer info: www.zodiacdemusical.nl

Ook na de zoveelste misgelopen overwinning zijn Henk-Jan en Maurits er weer voor je om je op te vrolijken. We bespreken in deze podcast de wedstrijd tegen Fortuna met Stef de Bont, clubwatcher van Utrecht voor Voetbal International, en we bellen met Remco Kraak over de nieuwste aflevering van zijn podcast, die woensdag online komt. We hebben geprobeerd zo vrolijk mogelijk te zijn, in deze tijd is dat af en toe wel een nodig. Onze laatste column over het verloren plezier nog een keer teruglezen? Check 'm op https://www.patreon.com/posts/vroeger-was-43457320. Volg de podcast op twitter: @RedWhitePod: Maurits: @MauFCU Henk-Jan: @henkjanvaneijk Volg ons op facebook: www.facebook.com/redwhitepodcast Volg ons op Instagram: @RedWhitePod Veel luisterplezier!

Begin 2020 kreeg ze al een Musical Award voor Aanstormend Talent voor haar rol in Fun Home. Nu doet ze mee aan de tweede editie van Musical In Concert - Stars From The House. Welke liedjes zingt ze in dit concert en wat gaat zij volgend jaar doen? Een leuk gesprek met deze 23 jarige (musical)actrice en zangeres. Het concert is nu te bekijken t/m 27 december a.s. Kijk voor kaartjes op Eventim!

Bonté - Revêtez-vous de bonté

Bonté - Revêtez-vous de bonté - Texte Biblique

durée : 00:15:00 - Les Nuits de France Culture - par : Philippe Garbit, Albane Penaranda, Mathilde Wagman - Par Clara Candiani - Avec Paul Léautaud - réalisation : Virginie Mourthé

Neuf minutes de bonté

In deze aflevering ga ik in gesprek met Paul de Bont. Hij is klinisch psycholoog en werkt al jaren met mensen met psychose of psychotische klachten. Tevens doet hij veel onderzoek naar dit onderwerp en pleit hij voor vroege interventie. Er wordt vaak gedacht dat mensen die last hebben van psychoses eng of gek zijn en samen met Paul hoop ik dat beeld met deze aflevering te veranderen. In deze aflevering leer je alles over psychose: wat het is, hoe het ontstaat en vooral ook wat we er aan kunnen doen. In de bonusaflevering schetst Paul een casus waarin hij de link tussen trauma en psychose illustreert. Om toegang te krijgen tot deze exclusieve bonuscontent doneer je via www.petje.af/psychologisch. Met dank aan Paul voor het interessante gesprek, aan SK Produkties voor de fotografie en Bensound voor de muziek. Heb je vragen/opmerkingen na het luisteren van deze aflevering? Stuur me dan een berichtje via mijn website www.sabineklaver.nl, via Instagram @psychologischpodcast, Twitter @PsychoLogisch__ of Facebook onder PsychoLogisch. Bedankt voor het luisteren, zorg goed voor jezelf en praat met elkaar!

https://fpma.church/fpma/images/FPMA-VP-2020-05-08.pdf Date : 8 Mai 2020 Texte : I Cor 13.1-13 Intervenant : Pst Clément Rakoto https://fpma.church/news

De derde episode van Koninkrijk van Muziek Praat is hier! Een open, eerlijk en gezellige podcast met Kylie en Shelina de Bont die je kent van oa Bontgenoten en Chi Chat Friday. Hoe gaan zij om met de crisis? Hoe zijn ze begonnen? En, hoe zijn deze zussen gekomen waar ze op dit moment zijn. Beluister onze nieuwste podcast nu op Spotify!

In episode 3 of the Man Body Spirit podcast I talk to Harry de Bont about how we can shift our hardwired, evolutionary fear into more courageous, creative behaviours to thrive in the modern world.This inspiring conversation came at a perfect time for me personally, helping me to bounce back from day job overwhelm to find new motivation and drive for Man Body Spirit.If you, too, are feeling stressed or overwhelmed, and/or you have creative interests that you feel you don’t have the energy for, this could be exactly what you need to hear right now too."Focus on what you’re creating in this world, rather than on something or somebody else that might be a threat to you.""Find meaning in what you do instead of falling in line and just doing what’s on your to-do list."---If you enjoy the Man Body Spirit podcast, you'll love The Power Up, my weekly curated email magazine packed full of wisdom, habits and practical solutions to supercharge your growth, nurture your mind, power-up your body, and help you enjoy a more conscious, happy and connected life.Sign-up here: http://bit.ly/ThePowerUp

Maurits praat in deze skypesessie met Stef de Bont, clubwatcher van Utrecht voor Voetbal International, over de gang van zaken bij Utrecht in deze crisistijd. Er wordt gesproken over de contracten die Utrecht wel en niet verlengt, de financiële gevolgen van dit alles en de twee gaan in op de geschetste scenario's en wat die zouden betekenen voor Utrecht. Volg de podcast op twitter: @RedWhitePod: Maurits: @MauFCU Henk-Jan: @BompaFCU Volg Stef op twitter: @stefdebont_vi Volg ons op facebook: www.facebook.com/redwhitepodcast Check ons op instagram: @RedWhitePod Lees onze laatste column over normalisatie in Nederland: www.patreon.com/posts/column-zolang-er-31413959 Veel luisterplezier!

Een dag voor de Brexit kreeg afvalbedrijf Renewi een notering aan de Amsterdamse beurs. Voor topman Otto de Bont voelt de beursgang als een nieuw begin.

Leuk dat je luistert naar de voorbeschouwing op het nieuwe seizoen. Utrecht is zich op dit moment aan het voorbereiden op de tweede voorronde van de Europa League en het zal spelen tegen of HŠK Zrinjski Mostar uit Bosnië-Herzegovina of FK Akademija Pandev uit Noord-Macedonië. Ook blikken we vooruit op het nieuwe eredivisieseizoen en hoor je wat er gebeurt als Stef op vakantie is. Volg ons op twitter: @RedWhitePod Volg Stef op twitter: @stefdebont_vi Mail ons: redwhitepodcast@gmail.com Veel luisterplezier!!

Leuk dat je luistert naar alweer een van de laatste afleveringen van het seizoen. In deze extra lange seizoensafsluiter blikken we samen met Stef de Bont, clubwatcher van VI, terug op een zeer bewogen seizoen van de FC. Dus ga lekker achterover zitten en beleef alle mooie en minder mooie momenten nog eens terug. Volg ons op twitter: @RedWhitePod Mail ons: redwhitepodcast@gmail.com Veel luisterplezier!

Cinematographer-turned-director Jan De Bont never met a mode of transportation he didn't want to blow up, and it all started with SPEED (1994), the action-thriller that whittled Keanu Reeves into the wooden king of turn-your-brain-off blockbusters (see also: the Matrix and John Wick franchises). This high-concept hit has one of the most iconic movie plots of all time, with madman Dennis Hopper planting a bomb on a city bus that will go boom if the odometer falls under 50 MPH. Fortunately, a very plucky Sandra Bullock is on hand to help careen through Los Angeles' notorious rush hour traffic and quip some snappy one-liners in her star-making role. And if all those elevators, buses, and subway cars make you claustrophobic, you're in luck! We've also booked a honeymoon suite aboard SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL (1997), De Bont's Caribbean-set sequel that finds Sandra Bullock and Almost Keanu taken hostage on a cruise ship by yet another disgruntled psycho. (After a half-dozen mai tais, you'll swear it's Titanic!) So join us as your favorite hotshots take a pop quiz that asks just one question — is Speed still worth the ride, or should we hit the brakes? When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Cinematographer-turned-director Jan De Bont never met a mode of transportation he didn't want to blow up, and it all started with SPEED (1994), the action-thriller that whittled Keanu Reeves into the wooden king of turn-your-brain-off blockbusters (see also: the Matrix and John Wick franchises). This high-concept hit has one of the most iconic movie plots of all time, with madman Dennis Hopper planting a bomb on a city bus that will go boom if the odometer falls under 50 MPH. Fortunately, a very plucky Sandra Bullock is on hand to help careen through Los Angeles' notorious rush hour traffic and quip some snappy one-liners in her star-making role. And if all those elevators, buses, and subway cars make you claustrophobic, you're in luck! We've also booked a honeymoon suite aboard SPEED 2: CRUISE CONTROL (1997), De Bont's Caribbean-set sequel that finds Sandra Bullock and Almost Keanu taken hostage on a cruise ship by yet another disgruntled psycho. (After a half-dozen mai tais, you'll swear it's Titanic!) So join us as your favorite hotshots take a pop quiz that asks just one question — is Speed still worth the ride, or should we hit the brakes? When We Were Young is a podcast devoted to the most beloved pop culture of our formative years (roughly 1980-2000). Join us for a look back to the past with a critical eye on how these movies, songs, TV shows and more hold up now. Follow us on Twitter and Instagram at @WWWYshow, on Facebook at Facebook.com/WWWYShow and email your episode suggestions to wwwyshow@gmail.com. Don’t forget to subscribe and review us on iTunes so more folks check out the show! Help us defray the costs of creating this show, which includes purchasing movies/shows/music to review, delivery food to eat our feelings, and producing & editing in-house at the MFP Studio in Los Angeles, California, by donating to our Patreon account at patreon.com/WhenWeWereYoung

Leuk dat je weer luistert naar de Red White Podcast. Stef de Bont, clubwatcher van FC Utrecht voor Voetbal International, is te gast, en met hem bespreken we de wedstrijd tegen Groningen van afgelopen vrijdag, het laatste nieuws rondom Advocaat, Michiel Kramer, Nick Venema, Joris van Overeem, en John van de Brom. Rodney neemt het laatste nieuws met je door en we blikken vooruit op het treffen met NAC aankomende zaterdag. Volg ons op twitter: @RedWhitePod Mail ons: redwhitepodcast@gmail.com Veel luisterplezier!

Twister Quick FactsTwister is an action/disaster film from Amblin Entertainment. Twister was released on May 17, 1996. Twister had a budget of $92 million and grossed almost $500 million in worldwide sales. Director: Jan de Bont (Speed)Writers: Michael Crichton (Jurassic Park) and Anne-Marie Martin, Joss Whedon (Avengers), Steve Zaillian (Schindler's List), and Jeff Nathanson (Rush Hour 2 and Rush Hour 3) were brought in for rewrites. Producers: Ian Bryce (Speed), Michael Crichton, and Kathleen Kennedy (E.T.) Twister Cast:Bill Paxton as Bill "The Extreme" HardingHelen Hunt as Dr. Jo HardingJami Gertz as Dr. Melissa ReevesCary Elwes as Dr. Jonas MillerPhillip Seymour Hoffman as "Dusty" DavisAlan Ruck as Robert "Rabbit" NurickJeremy Davies as Brian LaurenceLois Smith as Aunt Meg Green Twister Back of the Box Description The house rips apart piece by piece. A bellowing cow spins through the air. Tractors fall like rain. A 15,000-pound gasoline tanker becomes an airborne bomb. A mile-wide, 300 miles-per-hour force of total devastation is coming at you: Twister is hitting home. In this adventure swirling with cliffhanging excitement and awesome special effects, Helen Hunt and Bill Paxton play scientists pursuing the most destructive weather front to sweep through mid-America's Tornado Alley in 50 years. By launching electronic sensors into the funnel, the storm chasers hope to obtain enough data to create an improved warning system. But to do so, they must intercept the twisters' deadly path. The chase in on! Twister Box Quotes"A Gale-force Movie! The special effects are spectacular!" -Janet Maslin, The New York Times Taglines The Dark Side of NatureDon't Breathe. Don't Look Back. Go for a ride you'll never forget! The Beautiful yet Destructive side to life Twister VHS TrailersSpace JamWillie Wonka and the Chocolate FactoryTwister Soundtrack PromoBugs Bunny and Taz WB Intro Fun Facts on Twister -Bill Paxton and Helen Hunt were temporarily blinded by bright lights used to dim the sky. The lights sunburnt both their eyeballs and caused them both to miss a couple days of shooting. -The sound of the tornado got the crew nominated for an Academy Award for best sound. How did they do it? “To make new and different wind sounds, they constructed a box filled with chicken wire, stuck a microphone inside, and placed it on top of a car,” author Keay Davidson revealed in his book, Twister: The Science of Tornadoes and the Making of a Natural Disaster Movie. “Then they rolled the car downhill — turning the engine off so that it wouldn’t interfere with the sound recording. “They also reviewed recordings of camels and noted that these creatures emit sounds that are ‘wet and lugubrious and nasty.’ As he [supervising sound editor, Stephen Hunter Flick] listened to the camel recordings over and over, Flick turned down the pitch, and the camels’ sounds developed a moaning, ‘cavernous’ quality that, he felt, nicely captured the eerie vastness of a tornado.”-Director Jan De Bont was very unpopular on set. Entertainment Weekly claimed more than 20 crew members walked off the set after De Bont pushed a camera assistant into the mud after he got in the way of a complicated shot. The -Bill Paxton wanted to direct a sequel but sadly it never happened before his death. -Two of the stars in Twister have passed away. Phillip Seymour Hoffman died on February 2, 2014, of an accidental drug overdose. Bill Paxton died on February 25, 2017, due to complications from surgery. Come back next week for our listener submission month of January. Discuss these movies and more on our Facebook page. You can also listen to us on iTunes, Podbean, and Youtube! Email us at analogjonestof@gmail.com with any comments or questions!

Every film is both a product of its environment, and a rebellion against it. Artists (and audiences) search for something new and fresh, but cannot escape the world as it exists around them. Die Hard is no exception. While Die Hard is often marked as a turning point in American action cinema, we must first look at the state of action cinema as it existed before 1988. What does a “typical” 80s action movie look like? What artistic and societal pressures shaped that mold? And in what ways does Die Hard break it? As we kick off this limited series, let us know what you think! Drop us a line at diehardwithapodcast@gmail.com, or visit our site at www.diehardwithapodcast.com.   Source Links A/V Club, Die Hard humanized (and perfected) the action movie Creative Screenwriting, “There is no such thing as an action movie.” Steven E. de Souza on Screenwriting David Bordwell, It's the 80s, stupid Hollywood Suite, The French Connection and the gritty realism of the 70s IndieWire, 10 Defining 1970s Disaster Movies IndieWire, Cruel Summer: Die Hard (1988) James Kendrick, Hollywood Bloodshed: Violence in 1980s American Cinema Medium, New Hollywood: Why The 70's Were The Greatest Decade In America Cinema New York Times, How the American Action Movie Went Kablooey Oxford Bibliographies, Action Movies Slate, In The Parallax View, Conspiracy Goes All the Way to the Top—and Beyond Vulture, How Die Hard Changed the Action Game   Guests Shannon Hubbell Ed Grabionowski Adam Sternbergh Katie Walsh Scott Wampler   Get In Touch Email Website Twitter Facebook Instagram Patreon   Full Episode Transcript Welcome to the podcast, pal. My name is Simone Chavoor, and thank you for joining me for Die Hard With a Podcast! The show that examines the best American action movie of all time: Die Hard. Thank you to everyone who listened to the first episode of the show! It’s been so fun to get this podcast off the ground. Everyone’s been really awesome and supportive, from the listeners to the experts I’ve been talking to for the show. Starting in this episode, we’ll hear from filmmakers, film critics, and pop culture writers to get their perspectives on Die Hard and what it means as a part of film history. I’m excited to introduce them to you later in the show. If you want to share your thoughts on Die Hard and the things brought up on the podcast, reach out! Email Website Twitter Facebook Instagram I’ve been trying to post lots of additional photos and facts to the social media accounts in particular. My favorite so far was a Dungeons and Dragons character alignment chart I made for Die Hard. McClane is Chaotic Good, Al Powell is Lawful Good… You’ll have to visit the pages to see the rest of who’s who on the chart. And if you like this show, kick me a buck or two on Patreon. Patreon helps to offset the cost of doing this show, not just in pure dollars and cents, but for the sheer amount of time this podcast takes to put together. This is my first solo project, and although I have the wonderful, amazing support of my guests and fans, it still takes a lot of time researching, writing, recording, and editing. Patreon There are some cool bonuses you can get, everything from shout outs on the show, to stickers, ornaments, and the bonus episode – which is TBD, because you get to vote on! So check that out, and pitch in if you can. Shout out to our contributors… Rob T, Jason H, and Saint Even! I hope I’m saying that right. Anyone who’s listened to my other podcast knows that I can’t pronounce half the names I come across. It’s amazing how good you think you are at pronouncing things until you get in front of a mic... Thank you so much! You can also support Die Hard With a Podcast by leaving a review on iTunes. With more starred ratings and written reviews, the show becomes more visible to other potential listeners, so please share the love and let me know what you think! All right. On to our main topic. Every film is both a product of its environment, and a rebellion against it. Artists (and audiences) search for something new and fresh, but cannot escape the world as it exists around them. Die Hard is no exception. While Die Hard is often marked as a turning point in American action cinema, we must first look at the state of action cinema as it existed before 1988. What does a “typical” 80s action movie look like? What artistic and societal pressures shaped that mold? And in what ways does Die Hard break it? But before we talk about 80s films, let’s talk about… 70s films. 70s cinema was a time when shit started to get real. After years of glossy studio pictures, filmmakers wanted to show things as they really were. And with Vietnam, Watergate, the oil crisis, rising crime in cities, and so much more, things were… fucked up. And the movies made then reflected that. They were dark, pessimistic, gritty, bleak. No happy endings to be found here. Midnight Cowboy and Taxi Driver are two of the most 70s-ish depressing-ass movies that I like to point out as an example of this. [CLIP: MIDNIGHT COWBOY - I’M WALKING HERE] With that mood in mind, let’s drill down into some specifics. [INTERVIEW: ED GRABIANOWSKI I’m Ed Grabianowski, and I am a longtime writer; I’ve written for sites like io9 and How Stuff Works and a whole bunch of others, and I also write horror and fantasy fiction. If you go back to the 70s, there weren’t really movies in the 70s that were just like action movies, like that you would just define as action movies, to the extent there were later. You instead got sort of different sub-genres; you had sort of like cops and robbers movies with gunfights and car chases, and then you had like martial arts movies with lots of fist fights and sword fights.] Within this general movement, a few particular genres stand out. There was a lot going on in 70s film as the studios’ creative control was usurped by a new wave of auteur filmmakers. Now of course, there were lots of popular genres in this moment, all important in their own ways, like science fiction, horror, spaghetti Westerns, blaxploitation films, kung-fu movies. You can see some through lines from then, to the 80s, and into Die Hard in particular. But for our discussion today, we’re going to focus on three: disaster movies, paranoid political thrillers, and rogue cops and vigilantes. Let’s start with disaster movies. [INTERVIEW: ED GRABIANOWSKI And then you had the disaster movie subgenre, which was a huge trend for a while, and that was more based on spectacle and the visuals of a disaster happening. And also interestingly tended to be more ensemble casts.] After all, As we discussed in our first episode, Die Hard was directly inspired by one of the best-known disaster movies of the 70s: 1974’s The Towering Inferno. These movies featured people going about their business – attending a party, trying to catch a flight, taking a nice little cruise. Then BAM! A fire starts, a bomb goes off, a tsunami hits. These disasters, some natural, some natural-with-the-help-of-man’s-hubris, and some entirely man-made strike large groups of people, who we quickly learn are totally expendable. We follow these thinly written characters in multiple plot lines as they try to escape, survive, or stop whatever calamity is going on. In the process, the audience gets to experience their peril... which usually includes a bunch of explosions. The Towering Inferno boasts an all-star cast that includes Steve McQueen, Paul Newman, Faye Dunaway, and Fred Astaire. Our main characters are at a dedication ceremony for the new Glass Tower, the now-tallest building in the world. (As an aside, I work quite close to Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, which is currently the tallest building in San Francisco and the second-tallest west of the Mississippi. The fictional Glass Tower in the movie is taller than both of those by 500 feet. And every time I look at it I think about either The Towering Inferno or Nakatomi Tower, and neither of those are things you want to think about on your lunch break.) While at the ceremony, a fire breaks out on the 81st floor, trapping the people above. A group makes it to the roof for an attempted helicopter rescue, but the copter crashes and sets the roof on fire. After many thwarted attempts to escape, Steve McQueen and Paul Newman use plastic explosives to blow up the water tanks on the top of the building, flooding the floors below and putting out the fire. [CLIP: THE TOWERING INFERNO TRAILER] It’s easy to see how novelist Roderick Thorp could see that movie, dream about it, throw in some terrorists, and come up with the seed of Die Hard. As the Watergate scandal unfolded, the paranoid political thriller came to the fore. We’re talking Three Days of the Condor, Parallax View, and obviously All the President’s Men. These are films mostly centered on an individual uncovering a government conspiracy, and trying to either expose it or just escape with their life. But, fitting with the general mood of American cinema at the time, things usually don’t work out too well for the protagonists. Spoiler alert – in these films, usually the big bad government conspiracy gets away with it, leaving the heroes either dead or defeated. The individual, no matter what knowledge they’re armed with, is helpless against the faceless cabal that keeps the populace in line. To put it bluntly, the government is all-powerful and all-knowing, and you, the lone citizen, are fucked if you go against them. [CLIP: ALL THE PRESIDENT’S MEN TRAILER ] The final 70s genre we’re looking at as a direct influence to Die Hard is the “rogue cop” or “vigilante” movie. The protagonists in these films are also lone individuals, but of a different stripe than what we’ll see later: they’re the anti-heroes. They’re deeply messed up in some way. They’re the cop who doesn’t play by the rules, or the everyman who gets pushed too far by society and turns to violence. Death Wish, Dirty Harry, The French Connection. These movies manifest the existential dread of audiences who feared social upheaval, economic instability, and rising crime in cities. And then they offer the wish fulfillment of being able to buck the rules and do things your way – no matter what the police chief says. [CLIP: DIRTY HARRY] As Ed pointed out earlier, the 70s didn’t have what we consider a blanket “action movie” – as you can see, the genres we just talked about had action in them, but it wasn’t the defining characteristic of the movie. If the word “action” was used to describe a movie in generic terms at all, it was usually paired with the word “adventure” to convey something more fantastic and epic. But moreover, the action in these films was, well… kind of a bummer. Violence and destruction were used to emphasize the more troubling aspects of our society. Even if these scenes were exciting, they were heavy. They were serious. So what tipped these old genres over into a new kind of film at the start of the decade? [INTERVIEW: ED GRABIANOWSKI It just sort of happened. There’s – yes, people – there’s this sort of gestalt like, let’s take elements of all these things and make something that just embodies all of that. And that became the action movie.] Audiences were transforming from Steven and Elyse Keatons into Alex P. Keatons. But in addition to a transition from Carter and the recession to Reagan and a “greed is good” economy, the film industry in particular had new pressures and opportunities that ushered in a new era of filmmaking. David Bordwell, Professor of Film Studies at the University of Wisconsin – Madison, sums it up: “With the new attractiveness of the global market, the demands of home video, and increasingly sophisticated special effects, the 1980s brought the really violent action movie into its own.” Bordwell amusingly closes his exploration of 80s action movies with one, lone sentence: “I save for last the obligatory mention of Die Hard, the Jaws of the 1980s: a perfectly engineered entertainment.” Guess that statement stands on its own... The writer of Die Hard and Commando, Steven De Souza, expands on Bordwell’s point about the global market. He says, “I would argue that the genre of an ‘action movie’ is a completely false creature. There is no such thing as an action movie. All movies have action. ‘Action movie’ is a term that was invented in the ‘80s. I think Commando may have been the first one in 1985. They noticed for the first time that a handful of American movies were making more money overseas than in America. This had never happened before. Commando made 60% of its money overseas and 40% in the US. Action speaks louder than words. You don’t need to read the subtitles to know it was a bad idea to kidnap Arnold Schwarzenegger’s little girl. I disagree with the idea that there is such thing as an action movie, but we are stuck with that term now.” Well, if we’re stuck with that term, let’s go with it. So: what makes an action movie? In the 80s, “physical action and violence [became] the organizing principle, from the plot, to the dialogue, to the casting.” That’s according to academic reference site Oxford Bibliographies. Picture your typical action movie poster. There’s probably some kind of aircraft or ship or ground vehicle, maybe a hot lady kinda small and in the corner there… there’s definitely a bunch of fire… And standing tall in the middle, our hero. And he’s probably holding a gun. The lone hero is one of the defining characteristics of what we think of the stereotypical action movie. But he – and it’s almost always a “he” – is different than our “rogue cop” of the 1970s. The 80s action star was a one-man army, alone more powerful than the hordes of henchman thrown up against him. Our hero might have a sidekick or lead a small team, but in the end they’re either ineffectual and/or expendable – by the end of the film, it’s our protagonist who takes down the bad guy by himself. The action hero inhabits his body, not his mind. His powers come from physical strength (and firepower) instead of cleverness. I mean, when we meet Arnold Schwarzenegger in Commando, we see multiple shots of his biceps before we even see his face. As IndieWire put it, the heroes are “obscenely pumped-up one-man fighting machine[s]... outrageously entertaining comic-book depictions of outsized masculinity.” [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH My name is Adam Sternbergh. I’m a novelist and a contributing editor to New York Magazine and a pop culture journalist. 80s action films, as we think of them now, they’re very excessive, they’re all about a sort of oversized machismo and enormous guns and enormous muscles and enormous explosions. Which was very exhilarating, but I think even by the time Die Hard came out, was starting to feel a little bit tired, and there was a hunger for action film fans – certainly myself, I would have been about seventeen or eighteen, for something a little bit different.] [INTERVIEW: SCOTT WAMPLER My name is Scott Wampler, I’m the news editor at Birth. Movies. Death. I’m also the host of the Trying Times podcast. The first word that’s coming to mind is “sweaty.” When I think of action movies in the 80s I think of, you know, dudes that are super cut up, they look like condoms filled with walnuts, and they’re always glistening with sweat. And usually there’s a dirty tank top involved, or maybe some camo pants.] [INTERVIEW: SHANNON HUBBELL My name is Shannon Hubbell, I’m editor-in-chief of LewtonBus.net. I’d say action films of the 80s – I mean, it’s obviously dominated by Schwarzenegger and Stallone, and so a lot of the larger action films are centered around big, burly, unstoppable killing machines. Just barely human. Other than Terminator, that kinda thing doesn’t yank my chain. But also, you have things like, say, Escape from New York – smaller fare, different types of heroes, anti-heroes, instead of just hulking, machine-gun-spraying douchebags.] Matrix and Dutch, Rambo and Cobra – these guys were far from helpless. Once pulled into a conflict by circumstance, our hero is unstoppable. It’s a reclaiming of agency that had been taken away by faceless forces in the 70s. Our heroes’ incredible power is just that: incredible. I know this might be shocking news to you, but a lot of these 80s action movies are… unrealistic. After all, in Predator, Arnold escapes a thermo-nuclear explosion by just… running away. These guys are superheroes pretending to be regular dudes. Comic book movies weren’t so much a thing yet, although we did have that platonic ideal of a superhero – Superman – appear onscreen in ‘78, ‘81, ‘83, and ‘87. But invulnerability is okay. That’s part of the appeal. We want the heroes that fight for truth, justice, and the American way to be assured of victory. This leads into another characteristic of 80s action: patriotism. Now, of course, not all of our protagonists are American. Arnold definitely does not – er… can not – try to pass for an American, and neither can Jean Claude Van Damme. But most of our protagonists are not only American, but working-class, everymen Americans who are just trying to get by with an honest day’s work. Sometimes that honest day’s work involves special forces missions, but you know what I mean. Adam Sternbergh explains. [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH There was a sort of parallel ascent of the John Rambo paradigm, and Ronald Reagan. And Reagan was quite open about making references to Rambo, and I think Reagan at one point quoted the Dirty Harry line, “Make my day.” And there was a real sense in American culture that post the 1970s, post Jimmy Carter, post this national ennui or whatever people decided had overtaken the country, that America was being proud of being America again, and part of that was watching movies in which American POWs blow entire countries. And in fact the third Rambo movie is just sort of a ridiculous patriotism porn where he goes to Afghanistan and essentially single-handedly defeats the Russian Army in Afghanistan. That kind of action movie, I think if you look at it in a historical, sociological context, it made perfect sense for the national mood.] [CLIP: REAGAN AND RAMBO] In other words, if America was in fact a shining city on a hill, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, and Carl Weathers were there to guard its walls. Finally, the hallmark of an action movie is all the… [GUNSHOTS, EXPLOSIONS] If you’re having a celebration of American masculinity and strength, what else are you gonna do but blow shit up? There was certainly a fetishization of weapons in the preceding decade. Robert Blake’s character Beretta shared his name with that of a gun manufacturer, and Dirty Harry gives a whole soliloquy about his .45 Magnum. But the films that followed had to be bigger. Louder. If the 70s were the decade of the handgun, the 80s were the decade of the automatic weapon. [CLIP: NOW I HAVE A MACHINE GUN, HO HO HO] General explosions were also bigger and better, due to improved special effects technologies. The disaster movie of course had terrific destruction, but the buildings getting blown up were more obviously flimsy sets, if not just miniatures. And to me, the differentiating factor that separates 70s action from 80s action, was that 80s violence and destruction was… celebratory. It was fun. It was generally free of consequence. Our hero can’t die, remember? And the bad guys he’s blowing away are largely faceless cartoon characters, a dime a dozen. It was perfectly okay to sit in a theater and shove popcorn in your mouth while large-scale mayhem unfolded before your eyes. With these definitions in place, let’s go back and tick off the action movie characteristics that Die Hard shares. Lone hero? Check. John McClane is almost totally alone, with only a walkie-talkie as a tether to the outside world. The LAPD and FBI are ostensibly on his side, but they’re certainly not working with him. John must face a whole gang of terrorists by himself to rescue his wife. We’re confident that he’ll achieve his goal, even if things look dicey sometimes. [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH I mean, Die Hard was similar in the sense that it featured a sort of lone, male protagonist who’s battling against the odds, and if faced with a sort of intractable situation where he’s trying to fight his way out using his brains and brawn. An interesting parallel is the movie Commando, which came out just a couple years earlier with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and he basically has 24 or 48 hours save his daughter from these evil military types. And he goes about breaking everyone’s neck and shooting a bunch of people and blowing things up, and spoiler: he saves the daughter at the end. And so in that sense, Die Hard was sort of a very familiar setup. It obviously was kind of ingenious setup because it launched its own mini-genre of movies, which was the “Die Hard in a blankity-blank movie.”] Physical prowess? Mmm, not as much. John McClane isn’t in bad shape, not at all. He’s a cop, he can brawl. But he’s not one of those guys with “gleaming sweat [and] bulging muscles that couldn’t possibly exist without chemical enhancement... A bodybuilder’s fever dream, the sort of thing he might imagine after doing a mountain of blow and watching nothing but early MTV for 48 hours,” as the AV Club puts it. [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH Everything else was moving in that direction, toward more invulnerable, more muscular, more explosive. And then Die Hard came along and said, what if a real, normal guy found himself in this situation? What would he do, and how would he prevail?] Bruce Willis’s embodiment of a wisecracking cop caught in an extraordinary situation was a key factor in John McClane’s believability. [INTERVIEW: SHANNON HUBBELL On paper, just like describing Die Hard to someone, you can totally imagine Schwarzenegger playing that role, or Stallone playing that role. It’s the details and execution that makes it different. You have a character who is fallible, and hurtable and emotionally vulnerable, which is not something that comes across in a paragraph synopsis of Die Hard.] John is a pretty regular guy. He gets tired, he gets hurt. In fact, his physical vulnerability in the original Die Hard is famous. [CLIP: SHOOT THE GLASS] [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH From the very beginning of the movie, when he takes his shoes off at the beginning of the movie, you know, he’s in bare feet, he’s incredibly vulnerable and there’s this real sense that he’s this regular guy, who, there’s no way he’s going to accomplish this. He doesn’t even seem to believe it at the beginning. And it makes it so much more satisfying at the end of the movie when he does; he’s bloodied and he’s broken and his feet are bleeding. And that was just so different from that kind of Rambo, Schwarzenegger paradigm that had been established that had been so successful.] When you watch an action movie, you get the thrill of watching a superman executing a perfect plan. But watching a normal guy making it up as he goes along in Die Hard, you start to wonder – what would I do in this situation? We’ll get more into McClane’s physical and emotional vulnerability in our next episode. Patriotism? Die Hard isn’t an explicitly jingoistic film. There aren’t American flags waving as soldiers fight to defend American values. But we do have John, a white, heterosexual, working-class dude as our hero. See, not only is John representative of the American way of life, he also reflects a tension between classes within America, as well as in relationship to other world powers. Our bad guys are an International House of Terrorists, including what Ellis calls… [CLIP: ELLIS EUROTRASH] [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH I think there’s definitely some quintessential American ideas of class in the movie, and it’s not a mistake that the terrorists are not just Europeans but they’re all wearing turtlenecks and sort of beautiful European clothes and then there is a whole conversation in the elevator between Hans and Mr. Takagi about their suits and their respective tailors. And John McClane’s just a guy with a singlet on, running around like Johnny Lunchbucket. And I think at that particular moment in American history, that was a very resonant idea, again because there was this sense of America’s influence in the world being undermined – in particular by Japan, but just in general. American industry and this sort of notion of the blue-collar American economy was faltering in coming out of the 1970s. There was a sense that that was changing. So McClane is interesting, and I wonder if you made Die Hard now, if he would still be a New York cop, or if they would try to make him even more of a kind of heartland hero.] It’s also worth noting the presence of another foreign “threat” in Die Hard. The Nakatomi Corporation represents a very real American fear in the 80s that the Japanese wouldn’t so much invade as they would conduct a hostile takeover. Richard Brody of The New Yorker explains: “There’s another ethnic anxiety that the movie represents—the film is centered on the Nakatomi Corporation, headed by a Japanese-American man named Joseph Takagi, which is an emblem of the then widely stoked fear that Japanese high-tech businesses were threatening to dominate the American economy.” At the time, the Japanese economy was booming thanks to post-World War II reconstruction and a strong manufacturing industry. Japanese corporations began buying American companies, starting with car factories, steel works, and media companies – industries that are held as quintessentially American. [CLIP: TAKAGI TAPE DECKS] [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH It also has interesting strains of things that were happening in politics at the time, you know, the whole idea of a Japanese corporation that’s come to America and is a powerful corporation, and then the American inevitably has to save them. There’s a little mini-genre of 80s-era films that were sort of about America’s anxiety about Japan’s rising influence in the world. So I think a little bit of that is in Die Hard. You know, this sort of twist of having the terrorists be political terrorists who just turn out to be greedy robbers, was a little bit of a wink at the notion that all the other movies were about politics.] As Adam points out, American fear of this so-called threat can be seen in more than just Die Hard. 1986’s Gung Ho is specifically about a Japanese company buying Michael Keaton’s character’s auto plant. The Back to the Future series (which kicked off in 1985) also has a few telling moments. [CLIP: BACK TO THE FUTURE ALL THE BEST STUFF IS MADE IN JAPAN] [CLIP: BACK TO THE FUTURE II McFLY’S BOSS] In Die Hard, Nakatomi is positioned as not just another Japanese mega-corporation with more money than they know what to do with, but it’s also the company that is threatening to take Holly away from John. Okay, onto our last action movie qualifier: [CLIP: GUNSHOTS, EXPLOSIONS] Welp, I think it’s pretty safe to say that Die Hard has big explosions and over-the-top stunts. Lots of ‘em – and really good ones, too. They’re well choreographed and a pleasure to watch. Plus, they keep their own sense of fun. Having your hero dispatch a bad guy and follow it with a quippy remark is a classic action movie cliche. [CLIP: FEET SMALLER THAN MY SISTER] But the difference is that Bruce Willis has the comedy acting chops to actually pull it off. Look, Arnold’s great at a lot of things, but line delivery ain’t one of ‘em. [CLIP: LET OFF SOME STEAM] In the end, Die Hard is very much in the mold of traditional 80s action movies – and where it breaks that mold, is where it improves upon it. Hollywood’s been trying to recapture that magic ever since. [INTERVIEW: SCOTT WAMPLER I would say that it probably broke a general mold that had a hold on Hollywood for at least a decade. Outside of the work of say, Stallone, Schwarzenegger, who – you know, Schwarzenegger did a lot of sci-fi stuff, and Stallone – Stallone’s always been pretty ‘oo-rah American.’ But I think Hollywood as a whole, it definitely reformed the template, you know? There were shock waves coming off of Die Hard for at least a decade. You can still feel them.] [INTERVIEW: ADAM STERNBERGH I remember sitting in the theater and watching the movie and just being completely blown away by how great it was and how fresh it felt. That is really the thing I wonder if people watching it now can appreciate, is just how it felt like this gust of fresh air, given all the films that had come before. And those action films again, they were all tightly packed in in just like six or seven years in the 80s. It was a very sort of young genre itself. But this kinda came in and it was just a complete reinvention of what an action film could be, and John McClane was a completely different kind of hero, and it was so exhilarating.] The elevated craft of Die Hard, from the airtight script to McTiernan’s direction to De Bont’s cinematography, to the performances of Willis and Rickman, took what could have been an unremarkable summer flick and turned it into a classic. [INTERVIEW: KATIE WALSH My name’s Katie Walsh. I am a film critic for the Tribune News Service and LA Times. You know, you see enough bad action movies, and then you watch Die Hard, and you’re like, “This is so impeccably made.” The cinematography is gorgeous, there’s these amazing camera movements, and the lighting and all of the stuff that’s going on is just so perfect. And then you’re like, “Okay, this is a perfect movie.” I think cinephiles now are saying John McTiernan’s an amazing director, Jan De Bont is an amazing cinematographer, the craft that goes into this movie is impeccable, and it’s a very well-made movie; I think people are recognizing that.] In our next episode, we’ll dig in to arguably the most important contributor to Die Hard’s success: the character of John McClane, and Bruce Willis’s portrayal of him. So get ready, take off your shoes, make some fists with your toes, and join us next time. Thank you to our guests Adam Sternbergh, Scott Wampler, Shannon Hubbell, Ed Grabionowski, and Katie Walsh. Be sure to check the show notes on the website to learn more about them. Thanks again for joining me, and yippee-kai-yay, motherfuckers!  

De allereerste Special is een feit! FC Utrecht-watcher van Voetbal International Stef de Bont laat zijn licht schijnen over o.a. het ontslag van Jean-Paul de Jong, welke trainers volgens hem wel en niet in aanmerking komen voor het hoofdtrainerschap en hij legt uit hoe 'Deadline Day' voor hem eruit ziet en wat hij allemaal doet op die dag. Als je een vraag hebt voor ons, kun je ons zo bereiken Twitter: @RWPodcast030 Mail: redwhitepodcast@gmail.com Stef's twitter: stefdebont_vi Veel luisterplezier!

There's no better place to start than at the beginning – so, for the first episode of Die Hard With a Podcast, we're taking a look at the making of Die Hard. For a film with so many incredible stunts and huge explosions, it's hard to believe it's based on a book – or is technically a sequel to a 1960s Frank Sinatra flick. On this show, we go from acquiring the rights to the story, crewing up the film, writing the script, casting its stars, and rolling at the Fox Plaza building in Los Angeles. Learn why Die Hard was fully expected to flop, why Bruce Willis's salary was so controversial, and how exactly they pulled off Hans's fall from the 30th floor. As we kick off this limited series, let us know what you think! Drop us a line at diehardwithapodcast@gmail.com, or visit our site at www.diehardwithapodcast.com.   Source Links A/V Club, Die Hard humanized (and perfected) the action movie ABC News, 'Die Hard' turns 30: All about the film and who could have played John McClane Creative Screenwriting, “There is no such thing as an action movie.” Steven E. de Souza on Screenwriting Deep Focus Review, The Definitives: Die Hard Empire, Empire Essay: Die Hard Review Entertainment Weekly, Bruce Willis: "If I hadn't done 'Die Hard,' I'd rip it off" Eric Lichtenfeld, Action Speaks Louder: Violence, Spectacle, and the American Action Movie Film School Rejects, 31 Things We Learned From the ‘Die Hard’ Commentary Track Film School Through Commentaries, John McTiernan on filmmaking philosophy I Choose to Stand, Retrospective: Die Hard (1988) IMDb, Die Hard IndieWire, Cruel Summer: Die Hard (1988) Mental Floss, 19 Things to Look for the Next Time You Watch Die Hard Mental Floss, 30 Cold, Hard Facts About Die Hard Overthinking It, The Best of All Possible Die Hards Rolling Stone, Why the OG ‘Die Hard’ Still Rules Screen Rant, 15 Crazy Things You Didn’t Know About Die Hard Shmoop, Die Hard Shortlist, Die Hard: 25 Years On The Daily Beast, ‘Die Hard’: How Bruce Willis Changed the Movies The New York Times, If Willis Gets $5 Million, How Much for Redford? The Star Democrat, Five days of ‘Die Hard’ part one: ‘Die Hard’ (1988) Thrillist, A (Mini) Oral History of the Most Memorable 'Die Hard' Moments Viddy Well, 10 Fun Facts About Die Hard Vulture, How Die Hard Changed the Action Game Wikipedia, Die Hard Zimbio, 20 Things You Never Knew About 'Die Hard'    Get In Touch Email Website Twitter Facebook Instagram Patreon   Full Episode Transcript Welcome to the podcast, pal. My name is Simone Chavoor, and thank you for joining me for Die Hard. With. A! Podcast! The show that examines the best American action movie of all time: Die Hard. This is the first episode of this new podcast! It’s been a kind of crazy labor of love, putting the show together. Over a year ago, I started a podcast called Black Mass Appeal with the help of some of my friends. That show is about, shall we say... alternative religions... and it’s been a ton of fun to put together and I’ve learned so much doing it. But now, I’m starting on a new project about something else I love. I can’t recall exactly when I became a die hard Die Hard fan. I think my story is probably pretty typical; falling in love with the movie as I watched it at home on VHS, or badly censored on TV. I do remember that when I moved to Los Angeles in 2006 to take an internship on the Fox lot, I never got over my excitement at driving past the Fox Plaza building – Nakatomi Tower – every day. I got a gray sweatshirt and a red Sharpie to make my own “Now I have a machine gun, ho ho ho” costume for my Christmas party. I attended the Alamo Drafthouse’s “Nakatomi ‘88”-themed screening in San Francisco. And yes, I became one of those annoying drunks who’d go on at length about why Die Hard is a Christmas movie after a couple of cocktails. After yet another friend asked me for quick notes on whether or not Die Hard is a Christmas movie in order to settle an office debate, I sat down with a (couple) glass(es) of whiskey, rewatched the movie, and hammered out a four-page, fully-cited essay on the matter. (Which you can read on the website.) Yes, this is how I spend my Friday nights. But the fact that I did that made something abundantly clear: I love Die Hard. I have a lot to say about it. And I want to share it. So here we are! This podcast is going to have nine episodes that each explore different aspects of the movie. We’ll look at action movies of the 80s, we’ll look at our heroes and villains, how women and minorities are portrayed, and why Die Hard is so popular again. There’ll also be a BONUS episode… You can find out more about that in just a minute. So, before we dive in, a little housekeeping. Die Hard With a Podcast will release every other Thursday, wrapping up right before Christmas. If you want to get in touch... Email Website Twitter Facebook Instagram Finally, if you like this show, kick me a buck or two on Patreon. Patreon helps to offset the cost of doing this show, so unless you have a vault with $640 million in bearer bonds you can open up for me, pledge a little bit on Patreon. Patreon There are some cool bonuses you can get, like stickers, ornaments, and the bonus episode – and you can even help decide what you want the bonus episode to be on! So check that out, and pitch in if you can. And if you can’t – the best thing you can do is just listen and tell your friends. Leave a review on iTunes – that helps put this show in front of more people, so everyone can get in on the Die Hard love. All right, on with the show. For our first episode, I thought what better place to begin than where Die Hard began? So: this is the story of how Die Hard got made. The novel Die Hard doesn’t seem like one of those movies that started out as a book – there’s a lot of explosions in the movie and all – but it did. In fact, it started out as a sequel, to both a book and another movie. In 1966, writer Roderick Thorp wrote a novel called The Detective. It was an adult take on the cop genre, with the main character, private investigator Joe Leland, taking on a gritty case of supposed suicide that leads him to uncover murder and corruption. The novel was turned into a movie of the same name in 1968 by 20th Century Fox. The film starred Frank Sinatra as Joe, and the film did decent box office while Sinatra’s performance was well reviewed. Over a decade later, in 1979, Thorp wrote a sequel to The Detective with the express intention of turning it into another movie for Sinatra. The book was called Nothing Lasts Forever (which sounds more like a James Bond movie if you ask me). In it, now-retired Joe Leland goes to visit his daughter – not his wife! – at her high-rise office in Los Angeles at Christmas. While he’s there, terrorists take over and… a lot of the rest is the same is the movie. Kinda. We’ll get into that on another episode. Anyway, it’s kind of like how author Michael Crichton wrote The Lost World expressly to be made into a sequel to the movie Jurassic Park, or Thomas Harris wrote Hannibal to be a made into a sequel for the Silence of the Lambs. (You’ll come to find out that Silence of the Lambs is another favorite movie of mine…) Buying the rights According to Thorp, future Die Hard associate producer Lloyd Levin showed the book Nothing Lasts Forever to future producer Lawrence Gordon. Gordon took one look at the cover, with a burning skyscraper and circling helicopter, and said, “I don’t need ro read it. Buy it.” So, 20th Century Fox bought the movie rights to this novel, too. Now, Die Hard was actually produced by Silver Pictures, the production company founded by mega-producer Joel Silver in 1985. 20th Century Fox ended up being more of the distributor. (At some point in the early 80s, before Silver Pictures picked it up, the rights to Nothing Lasts Forever were actually owned by Clint Eastwood, who had intended on starring in the movie himself.) Joel Silver was just coming off of a hot streak of iconic 80s action movies like Commando, Lethal Weapon, Predator, and Action Jackson, and he was able to pull from the talent behind those movies to put Die Hard into production. The crew Silver offered the gig to the director of 1987’s Predator, John McTiernan. Back in 1985, McTiernan had turned down directing Commando, and he almost turned down Die Hard, too. In fact, he tried a couple of times to turn it down. McTiernan said the material was just too dark and cynical for him. (And if you’ve read Nothing Lasts Forever, you’ll totally get it. That shit is bleak.) Eventually, he came around because he came up with a plot change that would “lighten things up.” “The original screenplay was a grim terrorist movie,” he said. “On my second week working on it, I said, 'Guys, there's no part of terrorism that's fun. Robbers are fun bad guys. Let's make this a date movie.’ And they had the courage to do it.” So instead of terrorists, McTiernan’s bad guys would be pulling off a heist. “I liked the idea of imagining what would happen when one of those Baader-Meinhof types got tired of fighting his and others’ political battles and decided to show them what a criminal is,” he said. McTiernan also changed things up with inspiration from an unlikely source: Shakespeare. The original story took place over the course of three days, which was way too long. Now, borrowing from the structure of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the entirely of the plot would transpire over a single night. To hammer out the story, writers Jeb Stuart and Steven de Souza were hired. Jeb Stuart wrote the original script, and Steven de Souza was responsible for a lot of the on-the-fly revisions that would take place during shooting. Die Hard was Jeb Stuart’s first film credit if you can believe it, and after Die Hard he later went on to write Another 48 Hours, Fire Down Below, and the really really amazing The Fugitive. De Souza had previously written 48 Hours, Commando, and The Running Man, and he would go on to write Die Hard 2, Hudson Hawk, Ricochet, Beverly Hills Cop III, Street Fighter, and Judge Dredd. Basically, these are the guys to go to for action thrillers. The cast But who to go to to be the star of this action flick? Contractually, because Die Hard is technically a sequel to The Detective, the role had to be offered back to Frank Sinatra… who was 73 years old at the time. Fortunately, Sinatra decided he was “too old and too rich” to be running around making movies anymore. By not going with an older gentleman as the lead, the filmmakers were now free to explore new options for the lead role. Jeb Stuart describes how he discovered the core of the film: "I had no idea how to make this into a movie," he said. After getting into an argument with his wife, Stuart said he got into his car and took off. "It's in the days before cell phones and literally the minute I got on the highway, I knew I was wrong and knew I had to apologize," he said. He wasn't paying attention to the road and ran into a refrigerator box. "I went through it at 65 miles per hour and, fortunately, it was empty," he explained. "I pulled over to the side of the road, my heart was pounding and I thought, 'I know what this movie is about!' It's not about a 65-year-old man... It's about a 30-year-old man, who should have said he's sorry to his wife and then bad shit happens." He went home and wrote 30 pages of the script that very night. Hopefully he apologized to his wife first. When it came to casting the role of the now-renamed John McClane, the filmmakers seemed to try every male movie star in town. The part was offered to… Sly Stallone, Don Johnson, Harrison Ford, Richard Gere, Clint Eastwood (as already mentioned), Burt Reynolds, Robert De Niro, Charles Bronson, Nick Nolte, Mel Gibson, James Caan, Paul Newman, and Richard Dean Anderson (yes, MacGyver!). These actors ran the gamut from musclebound he-men to more sophisticated sorts. “When I first started working on it, they were talking about Richard Gere,” said John McTiernan. “The part was very buttoned down. He’s wearing a sport jacket, and he’s very suave and sophisticated and all that stuff. It was a sort of Ian Fleming hero, the gentleman man of action.” But what all those actors had in common was they all turned the role down. Going to Bruce Willis was seen as a desperate move in the film industry. After all, he was a *sniff* television actor, not a movie star. Willis was currently on the show Moonlighting, which was a comedy-drama about two private detectives. He had been in two movies by then as well, Blind Date and Sunset, but neither had been hits. Still, Willis was a charismatic, charming actor. Demographic data from CinemaScore, an entertainment polling and research company, said that Willis was popular with audiences. And once again, producer Lawrence Gordon stepped in to take decisive action. Bruce Willis tells it himself: “I know that Larry Gordon was instrumental in me getting the job. What’s that expression? Success has many fathers, failure is an orphan? Well, a lot of people take credit for my appearance in the first Die Hard, but Larry Gordon was really the guy. He lobbied for me. And then got them to give me an outrageous sum of money for acting in the film.” It really was an outrageous sum of money. Willis was paid $5 million – more than almost any other leading man at the time. (Dustin Hoffman got $5.5 million for Tootsie, and Stallone got $12 million for Rambo III.) But multi-million dollar paychecks were usually reserved for only the biggest names in the business. Even then, the figures were only in the $2 or $3 million range. A TV actor getting this kind of payday sparked a legit panic among studios. In a New York Times article titled, “If Willis Gets $5 Million, How Much for Redford?,” writer Aljean Harmetz calls it “equivalent to an earthquake. The map of movie-star salaries must now be redrawn.” In response, Leonard Goldberg, president and chief operating officer of 20th Century Fox got a little testy. He told the New York Times for that article, ''Die Hard hinges on the lead. We had a very exciting script and a team of producers who delivered Predator and Commando. We reached out for Bruce Willis because we thought we had the potential of a major film which is a star vehicle.'' But even after all of that, the reason Willis could even take the role came down to his Moonlighting co-star, Cybill Shepherd. Shepherd announced that she was pregnant – and because the pregnancy couldn’t be written into the show, Moonlighting producer Glenn Caron put the show on hiatus and gave everyone 11 weeks off. At last, Die Hard had its star. Casting the villain to McClane’s hero was less fraught, but still a bit of a gamble. The role was originally offered to Sam Neill, but he turned it down. Then, in the spring of 1987, casting director Jackie Burch saw Alan Rickman playing the dastardly Valmont in the Broadway production of Dangerous Liaisons – a role which earned him a Tony Award nomination. Rickman was known for theater, but, at the age of 41, had never done a movie. When he was offered the role of Hans Gruber, his instinct was to turn it down. He didn’t want to be a terrorist in an action movie. Rickman said (no, I’m not even going to attempt doing Rickman’s voice here): "I didn’t know anything about L.A. I didn’t know anything about the film business… I’d never made a film before, but I was extremely cheap. I read [the script], and I said, 'What the hell is this? I’m not doing an action movie.' Agents and people said: ‘Alan, you don’t understand, this doesn’t happen. You’ve only been in L.A. two days, and you’ve been asked to do this film.'" Of course, in the end, Rickman accepted the role. Rounding out the cast were Bonnie Bedelia as John’s wife Holly, Reginald VelJohnson as Sergeant Al Powell, Paul Gleason as Deputy Police Chief Dwayne Robinson, William Atherton as reporter Richard Thornberg, James Shigeta as Joseph Takagi, De’voreaux White as limo driver Argyle, and a whole mess of big tall dudes as Hans’s gang of robbers. While Hans is supposed to be German, Alan Rickman is British, and his right hand man Karl, played by Alexander Gudunov, is Russian. The rest of the crew was portrayed as more… vaguely international. That’s because there were chosen more for their intimidating look and height – 9 of the 12 were over 6 feet tall. And they certainly didn’t speak German – most of what they said in “German” was pretty much gibberish. As a final bit of casting trivia, there are three Playboy Playmates in Die Hard. Kym Malin (May 1982) is the woman discovered having sex in the office when the terrorists arrive. Terri Lynn Doss (July 1988) is the woman who hugs someone at the airport. And Pamela Stein's November 1987 actual centerfold is the one on the wall of the under-construction building hallway. The set Speaking of the under-construction building hallway – we have to talk about the set. Now, back in 1975, Roderick Thorp saw the movie The Towering Inferno, and dreamed about a man running through a skyscraper chased by men with guns. It’s what led to the high-rise setting of Nothing Lasts Forever, and eventually Die Hard. If you’ll remember, the cover of the book, with the building on fire, was what convinced Lawrence Gordon to buy the rights, after all. Call it coincidence or good luck or a sign of things to come. But 20th Century Fox was just wrapping up construction on their new office building, a brown steel-and-glass building at 2121 Avenue of the Stars in Century City, which would be named Fox Plaza. Or, as we know it better: Nakatomi Tower. It was production designer Jackson De Govia’s idea to use the building as Die Hard’s location. Getting to use the building required extensive negotiations with Fox. They had to agree to no daytime filming, and no explosions (whoops). According to McTiernan, "We had to periodically run downstairs and apologize to the lawyer beneath us, saying 'we're about to fire machine guns; will you excuse us?'" The scene where the SWAT team’s armored vehicle knocks over a stair railing in the front of the building caused months of negotiations alone. But in the end, Die Hard got its location, and Fox not only got to showcase its shiny new headquarters – in fact, a lot of early promotional material featured only the building, and not Bruce Willis – but they charged themselves rent for the building’s use. That’s actually pretty common in the film industry. The bookkeeping in the movie business is… interesting. The interior of the building was still incomplete, so any shots you see of under-construction offices were actually shot in the unfinished parts of the building. Other sets were constructed at Stage 15 in the regular studio lot. Using the half-finished areas allowed McTiernan and cinematographer Jan De Bont to place fluorescent lights in the ground and have half-finished structures in the foreground. The maze-like feeling of the offices and hallways was deliberate. Jackson De Govia said, “When I first read the script, I saw a jungle maze. It reminded me of the book High Rise by J.G. Ballard, in which a modern building becomes a tribal battleground. I wanted to make a building where that kind of action could take place. When the building is a jungle, people revert to utter realism, which is savagery… There are entire sequences where McClane moves through the building not touching the floor, like a predator in a jungle.” Although you might think so with a quote like that, De Govia didn’t work on Predator with McTiernan. De Govia had previously worked on a variety of movies, including Red Dawn, so he did have some experience with everyday folks fighting terrorists… De Govia did carry a visual element from McTiernan’s Predator to Die Hard, though: both Schwarzenegger and Willis crawl through waterfalls during the action. You see, the lobby of the Nakatomi Corporation’s office is a dead-on copy of the famous Frank Lloyd Wright-designed house Fallingwater, complete with stone walls and, uh, falling water. De Govia was inspired by Japanese corporations buying up American institutions – something that was freaking out Americans in the late 80s. He created a backstory where Nakatomi bought the actual house and had it reassembled in their lobby on the 30th floor of the building, waterfall and all. Directing style Now, putting McClane under waterfalls, into ventilation ducts and elevator shafts, under tables, and swinging him from firehoses certainly play to that guerilla-jungle spirit of Die Hard’s set. But the problem with a maze-like set is making sure the audience knows where everyone is, and where the action is taking place relative to the other players. Brad Bird, director of The Incredibles and Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol, analyzed Die Hard for Rolling Stone magazine. He said, “John McTiernan’s direction is an amazing piece of intricate craftsmanship. What a lot of filmmakers have trouble communicating is a sense of geography. For instance, one floor of a building under construction looks a lot like any other floor. But McTiernan put in little things, like a Playboy centerfold hung up by a construction worker. At first it seems like a visual joke, but it’s really there to identify that floor, so when Willis encounters it again, the audience knows exactly where he is. Many directors also shoot action very sloppily – they shoot up close and cut around a lot and put in all these big noises to distract you. But in Die Hard, you know where every character is every second of the movie. Things are going by at a fast clip, but you’re never lost.” This kind of dynamic but geographically-clear directing was McTiernan’s signature style, already on display in his previous film, Predator, as Arnold and his crew battle a literally invisible alien in the South American jungle. McTiernan is known for helping the audience understand the relative locations of people and things within a space by using as few cuts as possible; instead, he keeps rolling as he pans the camera from something on one side of the room to the other side of the room. For example, in Die Hard, when the building’s alarm goes off and the henchman in the lobby acknowledges it, the camera moves from the alarm on the right to the henchman on the left, without cutting – just like you’re there yourself, turning your head to see. You can tell he’s sitting just to the side of the blinking alarm. Similarly, McTiernan will rack focus from something in the foreground to something in the background, or vice versa. Again, this creates a feeling of depth within a single shot and allows the viewer to follow where things are with their own eyes. It avoids confusion, and is in a way more efficient as you allow the audience to track things themselves instead of having to explain things every time. Connecting these shots with a moving camera also keeps things, well, moving. The camera roams around, taking in the shot in a natural way, the way your own eye would. The objects and people within the frame are arranged to guide your eye (and therefore the camera, as it mimics the movement of your eye) from one thing to the next, leading you to discover important clues to the story. McTiernan says, “The camera isn't just moving for the sake of keeping it moving. The camera is an active narrator in a thriller. The camera has to tell you how to evaluate every piece information you get and put it into context.” McTiernan was able to achieve this kind of visual storytelling with the work of his supremely talented cinematographer, Jan De Bont. De Bont was born in the Netherlands and had quite a body of work already; McTiernan was already fascinated by what was considered “European-style” camera movement, and had particularly admired De Bont’s work with director Paul Verhoeven in The Fourth Man. McTiernan was trained in this so-called “European style” of filmmaking, and it fits right in with what we’ve already discussed about his style. You see, not only do McTiernan (with De Bont) move the camera to naturally create a sense of geography, they also enhance emotion and tension with “unmotivated moves.” By moving the camera (tilting, panning) and zooming in on someone’s face, they heighten their expression. It’s just like when you’re in an uncomfortable or tense situation, and the first thing you do is look at everyone’s faces to understand how they’re reacting, so you can know how to react, too. Production Die Hard’s principal photography began on November 2, 1987. The film had a surprisingly low budget of $28 million – it’d more than double that for the sequel. Once everything was in place, things had to move fast – 20th Century Fox wanted to release the film the very next year. That lead to a lot of making shit up as they went. A lot. The script wasn’t even entirely done when they began shooting. The heart of John McClane was still a bit of a mystery. Sure, they knew Bruce Willis was not going to be playing McClane like he would have the hardened cop Joe Leland from Nothing Lasts Forever, but there was still something missing. It wasn’t until halfway through shooting that Willis and McTiernan realized that John McClane simply doesn’t like himself all that much. You know that moment where John argues with Holly in her office at the beginning of the movie, and he bangs his head on the doorframe after she walks out? That was a reshoot done way later, once they’d clued in to what makes McClane tick. McClane’s sarcastic humor was also the result of on-the-fly rewrites. Bruce Willis said about shooting, “I remember that the script was in flux. It would change and they would rewrite scenes and we would come in and there'd be new scenes. I'll give you an example. The second biggest line in Die Hard was 'Come out to the coast, we'll get together, have a few laughs…' That line was written while I was in this mock-up of a ventilator shaft, trapped in there, I couldn't come out. In those days, a cell phone looked like a shoe box, they were enormous. And someone had to hand me a phone with Steven de Souza, the writer for the rewrites on Die Hard, and he'd tell me a line, they'd turn the camera on, we'd shoot it.” There’s some debate about whether or not the biggest line in the movie was the result of improv or not. In a 2013 interview with Ryan Seacrest, Willis said that “Yippee-kay-yay, motherfucker” was “just a throwaway. I was just trying to crack up the crew and I never thought it was going to be allowed to stay in the film.” Then again, writer Steven De Souza recalled the creation of that line a little differently. “Bruce and I grew up watching the same TV shows,” he said. “Roy Rogers used to say ‘Yippee ki yay, kids.’ So it had to become ‘Yippee ki yay, motherfucker’ in the movie. That line was from me. Whenever you think you’re writing a line that’s going to catch on, it never does. A lot of people, cough, Sylvester Stallone, cough, think they can invent them. The line you think is going to catch on never catches on and the audience decides what is the takeaway line.” Damn. De Souza shading both Willis and Stallone at the same time… Aspects of Alan Rickman’s Hans Gruber were yet to crystalize, too. The filmmakers wanted John and Hans to have a “mano a mano” meeting somehow, before the final showdown. When De Souza learned that Rickman could do a “good” American accent (which… No disrespect, but I think good is up for debate…), he put it together with the fact that up until this face to face meeting, John had only heard Hans, and speaking with a German accent, over the radio. So, Hans, searching for his detonators, runs into John… and pretends to be a hostage named Bill Clay who has slipped away. To stay on this scene for just a minute longer: there’s a bit of a “controversy” where it’s not explicitly explained how John figures out that Hans is only pretending to be a hostage. How would John know not to give Hans a loaded gun? Well, in an earlier scene that was cut from the final film, everyone in Hans’s gang synchronizes their watches – and they’re all wearing the same watch – something McClane, as a cop, would have noticed as he searched the bodies of the bad guys he’d already snuffed. Steven De Souza says, “When Bruce offers the cigarette to Alan Rickman, Bruce sees the watch. You see his eyes look at the watch. That's how he knows that he is one of the terrorists.” So supposedly this is some big plot hole caused by the cut scene. But if I can interject for just a second – and I can, it’s my podcast – I think that’s bullshit. It’s not a plot hole. We don’t need it spelled out for us how John figures out that Hans is one of the terrorists. John’s a cop, and clearly a good one – I mean, he’d survived that far into the movie, he’s gotta be pretty skilled. The audience can fill in that he caught something we didn’t. He can be smart; he can know things the audience doesn't know. He can notice the watches, or he can have a gut feeling, or he can just have the common sense to not hand a loaded gun to a perfect stranger in a really dangerous situation. Anyway. When it comes to plot holes, there is one in Die Hard that is easy to miss, but is, in fact, logically inconsistent. Up until two weeks before the end of shooting, filmmakers still didn’t know how the gang was going to try to escape. They decided that the gang’s plan would be to drive away through the chaos of the inevitable disaster scene in an ambulance that was hidden in the back of the box truck they used to drive into the building. Not a bad plan… Except for the part where they don’t bring the ambulance with them at the start of the movie. If you look at Hans and company arriving at Nakatomi Tower in their truck, you can see the truck is way too small to contain another vehicle… and besides, it’s not there behind the men as they wait to unload. Whoops. The stunts But then, we’re not coming to Die Hard to pick apart its continuity. We’re here for some action! Die Hard employed 37 stuntmen, under stunt coordinator Charlie Picerni. Stunt doubles were used for many of the action scenes – this is Die Hard, not Mission: Impossible, after all. Things always have the potential to go disastrously wrong, and there were a few on-set accidents, but fortunately none were too grave. When McClane goes down the ventilation shaft, you can see him fall – and that wasn’t on purpose. The stunt man was supposed to grab the very first ledge within the shaft, but he missed – and editor Frank Urioste kept his fall in the final film, cutting back to McClane catching himself on a ledge way below the one he was supposed to grab. One of Die Hard’s stunt performers is actually a Technical Academy Award-winner for his Decelerator System, which is a cable system that allows stunt performers to “fall” more safely from a higher height, and to be shot from any angle. Ken Bates explains his invention: “When we did Die Hard, I started using a device called a Descender, to do controlled falls. In other words, we do a controlled fall from anywhere up to 105 stories. The fall is controlled because you’re descending on a small cable. If the film is undercranked, it looks like you’re falling.” Bates clearly knew what he was doing with his Decelerator System, since he was the one who acted as Rickman’s stunt double during his fall from Nakatomi Tower. (He also doubled Bruce Willis when he leapt off the top of the building with a firehose.) Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman did perform a couple of stunts of their own. John McTiernan recalled, “The first time we got to the point in a scene where you would insert a stuntman, I told Bruce he would only have to take it up to here, and he then could go sit down. He said, ‘No, I want to do it.’ And all of a sudden, you saw that New Jersey street kid in him come out. It’s not that he did anything dangerous, but it was a side that he had not shown us before.” Bruce Willis explained why he was so game. “I think doing my own stunts whenever possible adds a lot to the production value of the film… John can get the camera close, because he doesn’t need to disguise the stuntman. But on a personal level, it satisfies the little boy who still lives in me who gets to shoot guns, kill the bad guys and be a hero while doing jumps and falls and swinging from ropes.” McClane famously ran around Nakatomi Tower without shoes on, but Bruce Willis got a little more protection. He was given a pair of rubber feet to wear – they make him look a little hobbit-like, since they had to slip on over his own feet. You can see them in the scene when McClane jumps off the edge of the roof as the FBI shoots at him from the helicopter. McTiernan and weapons specialist Michael Papac also dialed up the intensity of the stunt weapons for added realism. As in most movies, the firearms in Die Hard are real weapons that have been modified to shoot blanks. But these blanks were specially handcrafted by Pacpac. McTiernan wanted the muzzle flash to be exaggerated and the sound to be extra-loud. He got what he wanted, but not without a price. When McClane shoots a terrorist from underneath a conference table, the gun was in such close proximity to his unprotected ears that the bangs gave Willis permanent hearing loss. Willis said, “Due to an accident on the first Die Hard, I suffer two-thirds partial hearing loss in my left ear and have a tendency to say, ‘Whaaa?’” The deafening blanks got to Rickman, too. Every time he fired his gun, Rickman would flinch. McTiernan was forced to cut away from Rickman’s reactions so his expression wouldn’t be caught on film, but you can see one of them right after Hans shoots Takagi at the beginning of the movie. The most famous stunt in the movie is Hans Gruber’s fall from the window of Nakatomi Tower. We’ve already discussed how stuntman Ken Bates was able to pull off the actual fall, but it’s the beginning of the fall, where we see Hans’s shocked face in slow motion, that makes it so heart-stopping. That, of course, is actually Alan Rickman falling, although from not quite as high a height. "John McTiernan had to talk Alan into doing that shot because even stuntmen will generally not fall backwards – they like to see where they're going," said visual effects supervisor Richard Edlund. For Hans’s fatal fall, Alan Rickman was to be dropped from 25 feet in the air, with a blue air bag below him and a camera above him to capture his expression. The camera was shooting at 270 frames per second to capture Hans’s plummeting face at a rate ten times slower than normal. Rickman was understandably apprehensive about the stunt. It didn’t help that, legendarily, the crew told him they’d give him a countdown of three, two, one, go – and drop him on “Go” – and instead… they dropped him on one. Rickman wasn’t exactly happy with the crew for that surprise bit of acting motivation, but miraculously, they convinced him to do a second take. Ultimately, the crew’s prank (?) worked – the first take is the one you see in the film. Release and reception Die Hard wrapped in March 1988, just four months before the film was set to be released. As the filmmakers got to work on post-production, the studio did not exactly demonstrate a lot of faith in the film. As mentioned earlier, the early publicity didn’t even have Bruce Willis on it; the poster featured the Fox Plaza building as the star of the show. The advertising campaign for the film was short, too – especially by today’s standards. In contrast, I think I saw the trailer for Mission Impossible: Fallout in front of every movie I saw for at least two years before it was released! Everyone seemed worried. Test audiences rated the movie poorly, and “had no interest in seeing [Bruce Willis] dart around a skyscraper shooting terrorists.” The New York Times summer movie preview doubted Willis was “enough of a movie star to carry the film,” and Newsweek’s David Ansen was even more harsh, saying Willis was “the most unpopular actor ever to get $5 million for making a movie.” Film critic Roger Ebert gave it a mere two stars, and criticized the stupidity of the deputy police chief character, claiming that "all by himself he successfully undermines the last half of the movie." 20th Century Fox was convinced it had a flop on its hands. The movie was released on July 15th, 1988, in only 21 theaters in 20 cities, where it earned only $600,000 its first weekend. But then… audiences liked it. They loved it. They kept coming back. In the second week, the movie expanded to 1,200 theaters across the country. After Die Hard opened wide, it started out in third place at the box office, taking in $7 million. From there, strong word of mouth took it to the top, where it lived in the top five for ten weeks. It only dropped into sixth place in October. Die Hard finished its theatrical run with $83 million domestic and another $57 million worldwide – completely making up for that $5 million paycheck Bruce Willis got. It was the seventh-highest grossing movie of 1988. It also enjoyed a long, successful run on home video – something we’ll talk about later in this series. Not only was Die Hard a financial triumph, it received Oscar nominations for editing, visual effects, sound and sound editing. And it turned Bruce Willis into a star. The kind of star who’d later join Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sylvester Stallone – the very action stars he essentially replaced – in opening up a chain restaurant themed on Hollywood celebrity. And so, that’s the story of how Die Hard got made. There are certainly parts I’ve missed, or pieces of the story that have changed over time. Filmmaking stories sometimes take on the quality of oral histories, especially when the resulting film becomes a legend. Throughout the rest of this podcast series, we’ll explore why Die Hard has become so celebrated among action movies, 80s movies, movies in general. I’m excited to invite you to the party with me. Come out to the show, we’ll get together have a few laughs… Anyway, thank you for joining me. Happy trails, and yippee-kai-yay, motherfuckers.