Podcast appearances and mentions of sasha perl raver

Beyond the Cabin in the Woods goes beyond Totally Killer IMDB SynopsisDirected by: Nahnatchka KhanWritten by: David Matalon & Sasha Perl-Raver & Jen D'AngeloReleased: 2023 Quote: “Can you please just see ‘Back to the Future'?”Poll: What carnival/amusement park ride would you want to be your time machine?Rule: Yeah, so uh, the first thing you wanna do if you see the killer is run. Remember, avoid the knife... keep your life. If you enjoyed this, please consider buying us a coffee? https://ko-fi.com/A487KYMOur logo was created by Billy Whala and Debbie Cragg.Some parts of it are used under a creative commons license: Designed by Freepik https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://www.supercoloring.com/silhouettes/log-cabinOur music was modified from Dementia by Decomentarium and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Thanks to Billy Whala for editing this episode.#beyondthecabininthewoods #beyondthecabin #horror #horrormovies #currentlywatching #DonnaLeahey #KenziWhala #DebbieCragg #MacBoyle #SnarkCasts #gumbiecatnetwork

Welcome to Fatal Femmes. A podcast that explores women in horror, thrillers, and mysteries. Each episode focuses on a female-created or female-led story. We are your hosts Laura Celest Cannon and Lacey Cannon-Gonzales. In this episode, we look at the 2023 movie Totally Killer  Directed by  Nahnatchka Khan. Written by David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, and […]

Trick or teen, it's time to review a new(ish) teen slasher comedy movie which premiered at Fantastic Fest and later hit Amazon Prime Video in early October. That's right, we're talking about Totally Killer, which stars Kiernan Shipka of Mad Men fame. Totally Killer was directed by Nahnatchka Khan (Always Be My Maybe) and written by David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, and Jen D'Angelo. The cast also includes Olivia Holt and Julie Bowen. It started streaming on October 6 and has a 106-minute runtime. Our intro music this week is “Which One?” by Glimlip & .multibeat. Links: Email your feedback for the show to cinemaholicspodcast [at] gmail.com Join our Discord! We have a Cinemaholics channel here. Follow us on Twitter: Jon Negroni, Will Ashton Check out our Cinemaholics Merch! Check out our Patreon to support Cinemaholics! Connect with Cinemaholics on Facebook and Instagram. Support our show on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/cinemaholicsSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Totally Killer: Movie Review from the Ray Taylor Show Show topic: Tune in with Ray Taylor as he dives deep into the thrilling world of "Totally Killer", a unique blend of black comedy and slasher genres. Directed by the talented Nahnatchka Khan, with a screenplay enriched by the combined genius of David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, and Jen D'Angelo, this 2023 film promises unexpected turns and a roller coaster of emotions. Journey alongside Jamie (portrayed by the remarkable Kiernan Shipka) as she faces a horrifying revelation: her mother's friends have fallen victim to the notorious Sweet 16 Killer. However, Jamie's quest for vengeance and justice takes a wild twist when she is catapulted back to the vibrant and tumultuous era of 1987. Racing against time, she teams up with a younger version of her mother in a desperate bid to thwart the sinister plans of the youthful murderer. Will Jamie rewrite history or find herself trapped in a time not her own? Ray Taylor's incisive commentary, analysis, and review promise an insightful exploration of "Totally Killer" and its intricate tapestry of humor, horror, and heart.JOIN Inspired Disorder +PLUS Today! InspiredDisorder.com/plus Membership Includes:Ray Taylor Show - Full Week Ad Free (Audio+Video)Live Painting ArchiveEarly Access to The Many FacesMember Only Discounts and DealsPodcast Back Catalogue (14 Shows - 618 Episodes)Ray Taylor's Personal BlogCreative WritingAsk Me AnythingDaily Podcast: Ray Taylor Show - InspiredDisorder.com/rts Daily Painting: The Many Faces - InspiredDisorder.com/tmf ALL links: InspiredDisorder.com/linksGenre: Horror - Comedy

Totally Killer: Movie Review from the Ray Taylor Show Show topic: Tune in with Ray Taylor as he dives deep into the thrilling world of "Totally Killer", a unique blend of black comedy and slasher genres. Directed by the talented Nahnatchka Khan, with a screenplay enriched by the combined genius of David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, and Jen D'Angelo, this 2023 film promises unexpected turns and a roller coaster of emotions. Journey alongside Jamie (portrayed by the remarkable Kiernan Shipka) as she faces a horrifying revelation: her mother's friends have fallen victim to the notorious Sweet 16 Killer. However, Jamie's quest for vengeance and justice takes a wild twist when she is catapulted back to the vibrant and tumultuous era of 1987. Racing against time, she teams up with a younger version of her mother in a desperate bid to thwart the sinister plans of the youthful murderer. Will Jamie rewrite history or find herself trapped in a time not her own? Ray Taylor's incisive commentary, analysis, and review promise an insightful exploration of "Totally Killer" and its intricate tapestry of humor, horror, and heart.JOIN Inspired Disorder +PLUS Today! InspiredDisorder.com/plus Membership Includes:Ray Taylor Show - Full Week Ad Free (Audio+Video)Live Painting ArchiveEarly Access to The Many FacesMember Only Discounts and DealsPodcast Back Catalogue (14 Shows - 618 Episodes)Ray Taylor's Personal BlogCreative WritingAsk Me AnythingDaily Podcast: Ray Taylor Show - InspiredDisorder.com/rts Daily Painting: The Many Faces - InspiredDisorder.com/tmf ALL links: InspiredDisorder.com/linksGenre: Horror - Comedy

Totally Killer: Movie Review from the Ray Taylor Show Show topic: Tune in with Ray Taylor as he dives deep into the thrilling world of "Totally Killer", a unique blend of black comedy and slasher genres. Directed by the talented Nahnatchka Khan, with a screenplay enriched by the combined genius of David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, and Jen D'Angelo, this 2023 film promises unexpected turns and a roller coaster of emotions. Journey alongside Jamie (portrayed by the remarkable Kiernan Shipka) as she faces a horrifying revelation: her mother's friends have fallen victim to the notorious Sweet 16 Killer. However, Jamie's quest for vengeance and justice takes a wild twist when she is catapulted back to the vibrant and tumultuous era of 1987. Racing against time, she teams up with a younger version of her mother in a desperate bid to thwart the sinister plans of the youthful murderer. Will Jamie rewrite history or find herself trapped in a time not her own? Ray Taylor's incisive commentary, analysis, and review promise an insightful exploration of "Totally Killer" and its intricate tapestry of humor, horror, and heart.JOIN Inspired Disorder +PLUS Today! InspiredDisorder.com/plus Membership Includes:Ray Taylor Show - Full Week Ad Free (Audio+Video)Live Painting ArchiveEarly Access to The Many FacesMember Only Discounts and DealsPodcast Back Catalogue (14 Shows - 618 Episodes)Ray Taylor's Personal BlogCreative WritingAsk Me AnythingDaily Podcast: Ray Taylor Show - InspiredDisorder.com/rts Daily Painting: The Many Faces - InspiredDisorder.com/tmf ALL links: InspiredDisorder.com/linksGenre: Horror - Comedy

This week we have a look at the 2023 film TOTALLY KILLER. This is Episode #416! Totally Killer is a 2023 American black comedy slasher film directed by Nahnatchka Khan from a screenplay by David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, and Jen D'Angelo. The story follows Jamie (Kiernan Shipka) who, after her mother's friends are murdered by the Sweet 16 Killer on Halloween, travels back in time to 1987, where she pairs up with her mother to stop the young would-be-killer and return to her timeline before she is trapped in the past forever.This show is part of the Spreaker Prime Network, if you are interested in advertising on this podcast, contact us at https://www.spreaker.com/show/4268760/advertisement

In which the Mister and Monsters join me in reviewing TOTALLY KILLER (2023) which is available on Prime Video.  Directed by Nahnatchka Khan, from a script by David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver and Jen D'Angelo; the film tells the story of Jamie (Kiernan Shipka), a teenage girl who accidentally goes back in time to 1987 and meets her mean girl mom and tries to change events that forever changed her mother's young life and trajectory and may have ripple effects in the future.  The film clocks in at 1 h 46 m and is rated R.  Please note there are SPOILERS in this review. This episode of the pod is dedicated to KT and Wolf on their TWENTIETH wedding anniversary - party on you crazy kids and may you have a TOTALLY KILLER anniversary!  Opening intro music: GOAT by Wayne Jones, courtesy of YouTube Audio Library --- Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/jokagoge/support

“Dezesseis Facadas”, ou “Totally Killer” é um filme dirigido pela norte-americana Nahnatchka Khan, que, além da habilidade na direção, tem uma carreira longa como roteirista, incluindo trabalhos na animação "American Dad" e nas séries "Young Rock", Fresh off the Boat" e "Malcom". ::Já o roteiro poderia ter sido feito por 16 mãos, mas foram 6 mesmo: David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver e Jen D'Angel escrevem a história, que sai pelo selo Blumhouse: a produtora responsável por queridinhos dos amantes do gênero como "O Homem Invisível", "Ouija", "Fragmentado", "Nós" e "Corra!"::Na história, acompanhamos a adolescente Jamie, interpretada pela excelente Kiernan Shipka ("Mundo sombrio de Sabrina"). Ela é uma garota de 16 anos que mora em uma cidadezinha onde 35 anos atrás três garotas, também de 16 anos, foram mortas com 16 facadas cada uma. E eis que numa noite de Halloween, Jamie passa por uma grande tragédia e precisa voltar no tempo, para tentar consertar as coisas. ::No elenco, além da Kiernan temos nomes interessantes como Julie Bowen ("Modern Family"), Locklyn Munro ("As Branquelas"), Olivia Holt ("Cruel Summer"), Jonathan Potts ("Ginny e Georgia") e Randall Park, de "Wandavision". ::Coloque seu fone, aumente o volume e Senta que lá vem Spoiler!

The Grue-Crew review TOTALLY KILLER (2023, Prime Video) on Gruesome Magazine episode 470. Jeff Mohr from Decades of Horror: The Classic Era, Crystal Cleveland, the Livin6Dead6irl from Decades of Horror: 1980s, award-winning filmmaker Christopher G. Moore, lead news writer Dave Dreher, and Doc Rotten share their thoughts about this week's frightening addition to streaming horror films. Warning: possible spoilers after the initial impressions! TOTALLY KILLER (2023, Prime Video) Synopsis: When the infamous “Sweet Sixteen Killer” returns 35 years after his first murder spree to claim another victim, 17-year-old Jamie accidentally travels back in time to 1987, determined to stop the killer before he can start. Available Streaming on Hulu beginning October 6, 2023 Directed by: Nahnatchka Khan Written by: David Matalon, Sasha Perl-Raver, Jen D'Angelo Cast: Kiernan Shipka, Olivia Holt, Charlie Gillespie, Lochlyn Munro, Troy Leigh-Anne Johnson, Liana Liberato, Kelcey Mawema, Stephi Chin-Salvo   FOLLOW: Gruesome Magazine Website http://gruesomemagazine.com YouTube Channel (Subscribe Today!) https://youtube.com/c/gruesomemagazine Instagram https://www.instagram.com/gruesomemagazine/ Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/HorrorNewsRadioOfficial/ Doc, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DocRottenHNR Crystal, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/living6dead6irl Crystal, Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/livin6dead6irl/ Jeff, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jeffmohr9 Dave, Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drehershouseofhorrors

We've got another Movie Musicals show on today's Settle the Score and your host Matt Knost and musical director Andy Merryweather are jazzed to have back returning players and musicals aficionados Drew Grant and Sasha Perl-Raver! Get your songbook in order and warm up those pipes cause there's a lot of singing along on todays show. Our patreon is now LIVE!!! Head over to https://www.patreon.com/settlethescoreshow and join one of our 5 tiers! We're offering all kinds of perks, backstage access, exclusive shows, and more. We can't wait to have you be apart of the show and our new community. So please head to https://www.patreon.com/settlethescoreshow to support the show today! There's a general text thread on our Discord server for everyone. Join the discussion at https://discord.gg/GqcDngEjAB Make sure to SUBSCRIBE to the podcast and leave a REVIEW/RATING on Apple and Spotify! Make sure to LIKE the video, leave a COMMENT below, and SUBSCRIBE to the channel! If you'd like to take part in our next fan show you can enter in one of two ways. You can like and retweet the tweet Matt puts out each week promoting that week's show. Or you can leave a comment at https://www.youtube.com/mattknost. For every retweet and comment you leave it just adds your name into the pool that many more times. You can increase your odds by leaving more comments and retweets so fire away! Follow on twitter Matt: https://www.twitter.com/mattknost Andy: https://www.twitter.com/STS_Andym Drew: https://www.twitter.com/videodrew Instagram Sasha: https://www.instagram.com/sashaperlraver

Since this is The Season of Tarantino it seems only fitting to revisit one of our favorite episodes of all time, our 2017 deep dive into Pulp Fiction with very special guest Sasha Perl Raver. This was an absolutely fantastic conversation and the only thing that could possibly improve it is to make it longer and that's what we've done by adding a brand new intro which is exactly what we've done. If you haven't seen this incredible film you can buy or stream it right here. https://amzn.to/3Teh71m Don't forget to support The Cine-Files at https://www.patreon.com/TheCineFiles and purchase any film we feature at https://www.cine-files.net Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheCineFilesPod/?ref=bookmarks John @therochasays Steve @srmorris The Cine-Files Twitter @cine_files Instagram thecinefilespodcast --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thecine-files/message Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/thecine-files/support

Welcome in to this week's Settle the Score with your host Matt Knost and musical director Andy Merryweather. Today we've got returning guests Marc Andreyko and Sasha Perl-Raver in a movie musicals show! Fans of musicals rejoice because we have two incredible guests that really know their stuff which makes for an ultra competitive game. Make sure to SUBSCRIBE to the podcast and leave a RATING/REVIEW on Apple and Spotify! If you'd like to take part in our next fan show you can enter in one of two ways. You can like and retweet the tweet Matt puts out each week promoting that week's show. Or you can leave a comment at https://www.youtube.com/mattknost. For every retweet and comment you leave it just adds your name into the pool that many more times. You can increase your odds by leaving more comments and retweets so fire away! Follow on twitter Matt: https://www.twitter.com/mattknost Andy: https://www.twitter.com/STS_AndyM Marc: https://www.twitter.com/marcandreyko Sasha: https://www.instagram.com/sashaperlraver

It's time for another exciting edition of Settle the Score with host Matt Knost and musical director Andy Merryweather. Today we're welcoming first time guest and amazing human being Sasha Perl-Raver on along with returning champion and all-around gent Mark Reilly! Next week is our next fan show. If you'd like to be on the the fan show you can enter in one of three ways. You can retweet and like the tweet that Matt puts out each week promoting the show or you can leave a comment over at https://www.youtube.com/mattknost on the videos. Every retweet and comment you leave increases your chances in making it on the show. Finally, you can name our mascot. If you come up with the name we both love then you'll be automatically on the next fan show. You can also email in your mascot name (if you don't use youtube or twitter) to settlethescoreshow@gmail.com Follow on twitter Matt: https://www.twitter.com/mattknost Andy: https://www.twitter.com/STS_AndyM Sasha: https://www.twitter.com/sashaperlraver Mark: https://www.twitter.com/ReillyAround

Well, it’s finally here. The long overdue and much anticipated, Cine-Files 200th Episode Spectacular. For the first time in the history of The Cine-Files you will be able to both hear and SEE John and Steve as they welcome some of their favorite guests, including, Scott Mantz, Michael Vogel, Shannon McClung, Dave Rapp, Michael Ross, Stephen B. Jones, Sasha Perl Raver and Karen P. Morris to discuss the show, and their mutual love of movies. Don’t forget to support The Cine-Files at https://www.patreon.com/TheCineFiles and purchase any film we feature at https://www.cine-files.net Mozart’s 25th Symphony Envato Audio Jungle Acoustic guitar arrangement for song by TRow https://soundcloud.com/megatrev Creative Commons — Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported— CC BY-SA 3.0 Music promoted by Audio Library https://youtu.be/VxhdAV9PomQ https://soundcloud.com/megatrev/acous... Burnt Jungle Punks YouTube Audio Library Creative Commons Guitar Miniature No. 1 in D major by Steven O’Brien https://soundcloud.com/stevenobrien Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 Free Download / Stream: https://bit.ly/steven-obrien-g Noir Et Blank Vie Watch on Youtube: https://youtu.be/5TjejKlezBw MP3 - Free Download Link for this Music: https://bit.ly/339lBg7 Southern California by Riot Creative Commons — Attribution 3.0 Unported— CC BY 3.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/... --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thecine-files/message

Hector Navarro and Keller Knoblock are joined this week by Sasha Perl-Raver as they continue their ten-year-long movie watching journey with number 407 on the list of the 500 Greatest Movies of All Time: The Jungle Book (1967). Will Hector and Keller get through the whole list? Will they live that long? Follow along with Keller, Hector, and their friends as they tackle a movie a week! --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/500greatestfilmspodcast/support

It is time for the Movie Trivia Schmoedown with some new competitors entering the arena. Sasha Perl Raver takes on her good friend Kara Warner in a battle to find out who knows their stuff. Will their friendship be destroyed? Find out now! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In an effort to memorialize our lifelong teen idol Luke Perry after his untimely death last month, we've compiled some of our favorite memories of Luke, and of Dylan McKay, shared on past episodes of the podcast. Listen to clips from the original series and anecdotes from Beverly Hills 90210 fans, cast, and crew. 00:54 — Beverly Hills 90210 Executive Producer Charles Rosin 01:39 — Excerpt from Rolling Stone cover story by Jay Martel; full episode 03:10 — Santina Muha; “Stand (Up) and Deliver” 03:40 — Sasha Perl-Raver; “Spring Dance” 04:20 — Sharon Spaeth; “Things to Do on a Rainy Day” 05:12 — Benjamin; “U4EA” live show 05:44 — Natalie London; “Mexican Standoff” 09:41 — Kim Hoffman; “Wild Horses” 13:24 — Karen Tongson; “Greek to Me” 15:23 — Carol Potter, a.k.a. Cindy Walsh; “A Walsh Family Christmas” 17:08 — Beverly Hills 90210 Writer Karen Rosin; “Isn't it Romantic?” 20:35 — Dylan McKay clip retrospective Visit our new website | Support the show on Patreon | Rate & review us on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify | Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook

"This is my nightmare." Molls is back with film critic and friend Sasha Perl-Raver to discuss Deadly Delusion, a wild film starring a Lifetime queen close to our hearts, Haylie Duff.This is a classic layered Lifetime thriller, leaving you questioning who you can actually trust. You'll hear why this preys on Molls' deepest fears but we know you'll also LOL, especially when you hear how this landed so high on our rating scale!Help us continue bringing the Lifetime love by supporting the show on Patreon. If you’re digging us, leave a 5-star rating and review on Apple Podcasts so we can keep sharing the Lifetime movie love! Follow us online, too – @MMISWP on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Holly Gennaro McClane: portrayed in Die Hard by Bonnie Bedelia, John McClane's estranged wife reflects the conflicts and contradictions facing women at the time the film was made – and even still today. She's a working woman, a mother, and a wife. But there’s no consensus on whether she’s also a damsel in distress, or if she – like so many other conventions that Die Hard challenges – goes beyond your typical 80s action movie female lead. Let us know what you think! Drop us a line at diehardwithapodcast@gmail.com, or visit our site at www.diehardwithapodcast.com   Links How Did This Get Made? mini-sode 199.5 (Paul's recommendation is at 33:29) The Q&A Podcast with Jeb Stuart and Stephen E. de Souza, hosted by Jeff Goldsmith Die Hard: The Ultimate Visual History, by James Mottram and David S Cohen John McTiernan: The Rise and Fall of an Action Movie Icon, by Larry Taylor   Source Links Another Angry Woman, Making fists with your toes: Towards a feminist analysis of Die Hard Deep Focus Review, The Definitives: Die Hard Empire Magazine, October 2018 issue, Tower of Terror (p. 98) Mental Floss, 19 Things to Look for the Next Time You Watch Die Hard MovieTime Guru, Die Hard: First Impressions Last Script Secrets, Die Hard analysis The Guardian, Die Hard at 30: how it remains the quintessential American action movie   Guests Reed Fish Ed Grabionowski Sasha Perl-Raver 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. Welcome to the fourth episode! A lot has happened Die Hard-wise since the last show. I want to get to everything, so I’m just going to jump in with a big thanks to Paul Scheer and the How Did This Get Made podcast. He recommended the show on one of his mini-sodes, and I’m stoked he likes the show, and took the time to give it a shout out. I’m still not sure how he heard about this show in the first place, but however he came across it, I’m glad he did! Also, a couple of weeks ago I went on a spur-of-the-moment road trip to Los Angeles to see the Los Angeles Historic Theatre Foundation’s screening of Die Hard, which was followed by a Q&A with both screenwriters, Jeb Stuart and Stephen E de Souza, hosted by Jeff Goldsmith of Backstory Magazine. Now, the entire conversation is available to listen to and there’s a link in the show notes. Aaaand you can hear me at about one hour, twenty five minutes in, because you know I just had to ask a question. Although it was really hard just picking one. Anyway, go listen to the whole thing because it’s absolutely fascinating. I learned so much. I literally sat in the audience with a notebook and pen and took notes like it was for school. One of the funniest things was, this was Jeb and Stephen’s first time being interviewed together, which I could not believe. They talked about the process of writing Die Hard, but also talked about their writing habits in general. I’ll bring up just one tidbit I learned that they shared in the Q&A. So, when you go through Hans’s gang, only two of them survive: Theo, and the pretty French dude who’s trying to run away with an armful of bearer bonds before McClane knocks him out. I’d just never kept track of all the gang members like that before. So, I think, if they’re gonna do a sequel anyway, they should bring Theo back. Just sayin’. Finally, I got two books in the mail the other day that I’m excited to dig into. The first is Die Hard: The Ultimate Visual History by James Mottram and David S. Cohen. I had that book on pre-order the moment I found out about it, and it’s a huge tome that covers all of the Die Hard movies in detail, with these pieces put in between the pages – kind of like a pop-up book, but nothing… pops – it has storyboards, sketches, script pages, and my favorite, an envelope of photos taken to use as props in the film. The second is the book John McTiernan: The Rise and Fall of an Action Movie Icon by Larry Taylor. Larry contacted me on Twitter and kindly offered me a copy of the book, and I can’t wait to read it for deeper insight on Die Hard’s director. Okay, a few more pieces of business. You can always contact me and share your thoughts on Die Hard and this podcast by... Email Website Twitter Facebook Instagram There’s also a Patreon for the show – it takes an incredible amount of time to put this together, so any contribution helps me to offset the cost of creating it, and is a real vote of encouragement. Patreon Shout out to our new contributors, Heather and David. 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. When we first see Holly Gennaro – or Holly McClane – she’s walking through the Nakatomi Corporation’s Christmas party, which is already in full swing. But she’s completely focused on a stack of papers in her hand as she brushes past her partying coworkers. She has shit to get done. And that’s mostly how I think of Holly. She’s a woman with shit to do. And not Ellis, not Hans, and not even her husband John can distract her from doing what needs to get done. Holly Gennaro, as portrayed in the movie by Bonnie Bedelia, turns out to be the character who most split people’s opinions. There’s no consensus on whether she’s a damsel in distress, or if she – like so many other conventions that Die Hard challenges – goes beyond your typical 80s action movie female lead. She’s characterized as cold… and warm. Strong… but not having an agency. A good wife and mother just doing her best… or a woman trying and failing to have it all. Even I go back and forth on these. As one of the very few women in Die Hard, Holly Gennaro McClane comes to represent changing societal roles that had mostly been left to romantic comedies. Holly’s portrayal as a working woman, a mother, and a wife reveals the conflicts facing women at that time – and the conflicting viewpoints of the culture around her. Let’s start as we did with our examination of John, and go into her character as written in Roderick Thorp’s 1979 novel, Nothing Lasts Forever. She’s a totally different person, I think even more than how John was changed from the page to the screen. Retired former detective Joe Leland – who would later become John McClane – goes out to Los Angeles for Christmas to visit his daughter, not his estranged wife. Stephanie Gennaro – Steffie – is a divorced mother of two and an executive at Klaxon Oil. We see her through her father’s eyes, and it’s not a pretty picture. She’s sleeping with Ellis, and she’s been doing coke. Which I guess you would expect from someone sleeping with Ellis. It’s also reeeally awkward that her dad is putting thought into who his daughter is sleeping with. Also, there’s this: “Leland thought she looked tired. For years she had been five pounds too heavy, and now it looked like ten. With cocaine in her life, he had to be glad to see that she was still eating.” Yikes. The events of the book transpire pretty much as they do in the movie. The employees are held hostage by terrorists – real terrorists in the book, not thieves – and Joe / John gets away and begins taking them down one by one. But when we get to the final showdown with Joe and the terrorist leader Anton Gruber, there’s a big, big difference. Spoiler alert for the book: Steffie goes out the window with Anton. So yeah, the book is kind of a downer. Movie Holly, thankfully, is a much less tragic character. In Jeb Stuart’s draft of the Die Hard script, this is how Holly is introduced. She turns into: That’s the Holly we know. And the Ellis we know, unfortunately. There’s a movie goof I’d like to point out. For all the drama over which last name Holly uses, if you look at the name on her office door, you can see that it’s misspelled. On her door it says “H. M. Gennero” with a second E instead of an A. I just thought that was amusing. Maybe McClane would have been easier to spell… According to Die Hard: The Ultimate Visual History, casting for Holly’s role was part of a larger strategy of casting warm actors with a lot of depth to balance out Willis’s tough cop. Casting director Jackie Burch chose Bedelia, a New York stage actor who had won a Golden Globe for playing Shirley Muldowney, the first female hot rod racer in the 1983 movie Heart Like a Wheel. Bruce Willis liked Bedelia being brought on board. “Bruce thought that Bonnie would be wonderful; he had enormous respect for her as an actor, and he was so right!” said director John McTiernan. “She was again completely a working-class lady, but solid and honest as the day is long – and that is who he [McClane] would have as a wife.” We actually don’t know all that much about Holly. Like with John, we meet her without a lot of exposition of her background; we have to pick up the context clues. We don’t know anything about how she met John, how she got her job. It leaves a lot of room for us to speculate – speculate about her history, and therefore what her motivations are in the film. Holly’s roles as a working woman, a mother, and a wife allow us to project our own feelings and beliefs onto her, so I’m actually not surprised that the people I talked to ended up with very different assessments of her. It’s also worth noting that there’s a cultural gap between how she was viewed in 1988 versus today, so we need to constantly ask ourselves, is this what the film is trying to say, or is that what I’m taking away from it? The thing we’re most sure of when it comes to Holly is that she is a powerful, high-ranking working woman inside this large corporation. She works hard, and has been rewarded for her efforts. She’s got a corner office, a secretary of her own, and... [CLIP - DIE HARD - ELLIS - SHOW HIM THE WATCH]   Holly tries to downplay her success to John, since it’s already a sore spot in their marriage. But she’s still wearing that watch, and she doesn’t mask the fact that she has even higher ambitions. [CLIP - DIE HARD - HOLLY - I HAVE AN EYE ON HIS PRIVATE BATHROOM]   Katie Walsh, film critic for the Tribune News Service and LA Times. KATIE WALSH I think that it’s nice to see Holly in a executive role. I think a lot of times, you have like films like 9 to 5 where the working women are more secretaries, or they start as secretaries and they move up to something better. I think it’s nice to see the way that, she says, “I had an opportunity and and I took it.” And we don’t have to really explain how Holly got there, we just understand that, you know, she’s obviously a valued member of the team, Takagi really likes her, she’s doing a great job. And so I think that it’s kind of nice to see that there’s an effortlessness to her success . And I think that’s a bit of an anomaly, otherwise I think 80s movies were constantly showing how women had to like, struggle and get to that role. In the films of the 80s, we can see the intersection of corporate culture and second-wave feminism play out on screen. Unsurprisingly, it’s a mixed message. We applaud the ambition of women escaping the “pink collar ghetto,” as they call it in Nine to Five. In that 1980 film, Dolly Parton, Lily Tomlin, and Jane Fonda are secretaries who are held down, underestimated, and harassed at the office – until they kind of by accident take out their boss. After holding him hostage at his home for weeks, he escapes and returns to the office, only to see that while he was gone, the three women made changes that drastically improved the morale and performance of his workers. In 1988’s Working Girl, Melanie Griffith plays Tess McGill, a woman driven to improve herself and grow her career as she works for a coldly calculating executive played by Sigourney Weaver. When her boss is laid up with an injury, Tess takes over her office, her home, her wardrobe, even her boyfriend, and uses them to execute her own business plan. Which is actually pretty creepy if you think about it. But she’s the hero of the story, so her chutzpah gets rewarded when she’s given a job by the executive she had been pitching. In these films, we see likeable women with low-ranking office roles climb the corporate ladder to success, and we applaud them for their determination. But there’s also the reverse. Women who are already high-powered businesspeople are forced to reckon with their desire for a family, and end up taking a step back from the workplace. In 1987’s Baby Boom, Diane Keaton is made the guardian of a baby girl when a distant relative dies. She’s a busy executive – with the biggest shoulder pads there could possibly be, they’re more like helipads instead of shoulder pads – and at first she refuses to take responsibility for this child. But of course, something inside her melts and she bonds with the child and quits her job – something unthinkable at the beginning of the movie – to devote herself to raising this girl… and to creating a nice little business of baby foods, too. Now, the 1983 film Mr Mom focuses more on Michael Keaton’s character learning to deal with being a stay-at-home dad after losing his job, but we also see his wife, played by Teri Garr, return to the workforce. She’s met with immediate success – but in the end, her lecherous boss and her desire to be with her family pushes her to scale back her time at work. In these films, we can’t say that these women are punished for their ambition, but we do get the message that these women are wrong. They’re wrong to focus on their careers, and once they realize what’s really important – raising a family – that’s how they can get their happy ending. Adam Sternbergh, novelist, contributing editor to New York Magazine, and pop culture journalist. ADAM STERNBERGH I think it’s also not a mistake that the movie uses this kind of marital discord around the idea of a husband and wife dealing with the fact that the wife has a powerful career, or a more important career than the husband. That was also very much of that moment in history and it was, you know, around the same time that movies like Mr Mom were coming out. And you know, America, to some extent was at the cineplex was grappling with this idea that women are successful, and they’re in the workforce and traditional roles are changing. And you know there was this idea in the movies that this was this incredibly new and novel thing, this sort of ascendant woman in the workplace, and the men around her are all trying to deal with the fact that, whoa, she’s got responsibility and she’s got a real job. Bonnie Bedelia is a great actor and was sort of perfectly cast in Die Hard, so I think that she has a sort of gravity that I think some of the other sort of similar characters in the other movies don’t have. And I think they handled it well in the movie. You know her relationship with Mr. Takagi is sort of established early on, that she’s this trusted lieutenant of his. So I think even in her smaller role you take her seriously in a way that you never quite manage to take Melanie Griffith seriously in Working Girl. Women in these executive roles are judged for “trying to be a man;” some do try to take on characteristics coded as masculine in order to sort of disguise the fact that they’re a woman. You know, if women are perceived as weak, then she must not display emotion, she must be even tougher than the men around her. Unfortunately this can backfire, as a woman controlling her emotions is often seen not as stoic, but as cold. KATIE WALSH You know, I think it’s interesting, the way they portray the essential conflict of their relationship, which is that she wants a high powered career, and he clearly has an idea about more traditional values in their gender roles and their marriage, taking his name, that sort of thing. But I think Holly has kind of toughened herself to exist in that world. And so she has kind of like, I mean as we see her at the party and stuff, it’s like she has to put on this front a little bit of, I’m tough, I can hang with the boys, nothing bothers me. So she’s a little bit colder and more brittle in a way. And I hate to describe a woman that way, but she does have like a hard shell a little bit throughout the movie. And John is more like nakedly emotional, or at least we see him being more nakedly emotional about the situation. Sasha Perl-Raver, writer, correspondent, and the host of FX’s Movie Download. SASHA PERL-RAVER I have in my head Joan Cusack wearing a power suit with giant shoulder pads and a huge Aquanet bang wave, and Reeboks on top of nude tights. But the working woman of the 80s was somebody who had to have it all, she has a great career, she had a great sex life, she wasn’t afraid to let you know about it. She’s Sigourney Weaver. But not Ripley Sigourney Weaver, she’s Working Girl Sigourney Weaver. She’s a working woman in the 80s. Was a little brash, a little bit ball-busting, and usually had to be taken down a peg. Like it tended to be more of like the villain character than the hero. Like I’m thinking of Julia Louis-Dreyfus in Mannequin. In Mannequin she’s trying to do the corporate takeover and she’s overpowering and she really needs to be one of the people that falls in like a vat of tar at the end. All of those women sort of in the end, it was their drive that ended up being the hubris. SIMONE: Does Die Hard do that with Holly? SASHA: Of course they do that with Holly. She had to come all the way across the country and drag her children and leave her husband? You deserve to be held hostage in Nakatomi Plaza. When we talk about working women of the 1980s, the first thing to come to mind, even before the sexual politics, is the fashion. Maybe the fact we think of the fashion is already gendered because we’re talking about women here, but it’s a powerful image. As we’ve heard, there are iconic pieces that come up over and over again: shoulder pads. Big hair. Bright eyeshadow. Power suits. White sneakers over nude hose. Holly’s look is very much in this vein, but also more sophisticated – just as her character is, compared to those who came before her. According to Die Hard: The Ultimate Visual History, costume designer Marilyn Vance conceived Holly’s look to convey professionalism and power, using browns and pinks that complemented Bonnie Bedelia’s hair color and skin tone. A business suit was never an option. “She was a softer character,” says Vance. “But at the same time, she had a very important position, so her clothing, to me, had to be suede and leather and something more sumptuous. And it was the right time of year for that because it was Christmastime.” Vance shopped for Holly’s clothes at Saks Fifth Avenue, then had the studio’s costume department use them for inspiration when creating the character’s wardrobe. “The whole idea was for her to be strong but not tailored,” says Vance. “She’s soft as a person but she still means business.” And let’s not forget the importance of Holly’s Rolex. Given to her as a reward for her hard work, it’s symbolically sacrificed at the end of the film, as John unclasps the band so that Hans loses his grip on her and falls from Nakatomi Tower. The symbolism is pretty heavy-handed. The thing that represents her corporate life must be released so that she can keep her family life. And, you know, her life-life. But at least there’s ambiguity about whether or not she’ll give up her job at the end of the film. Concessions are made: losing the watch, Holly using the last name McClane – and we’ll talk about that more in a minute – but she doesn’t also declare that she’s quitting her job and moving the family back to New York. One more thing about the watch. Jeb Stuart, Die Hard screenwriter, has a nitpick. He says: “Anyone who’s ever owned a Rolex knows that watch isn’t gonna just open. It’s a sealed clasp! I brought that up at a production meeting and everybody looked at me like I was insane.” Now, I’ve never owned a Rolex, but if someone wants to send me one so that I can test this out myself, you are more than welcome to. But more than just looking the part, Holly is a natural in the workplace. She’s a good boss, making sure the work gets done, but also looking out for her employees, whether it’s sending her secretary Ginny off to enjoy the party, or negotiating better treatment for her fellow hostages. Even Hans has to acknowledge that. [CLIP - DIE HARD - HANS - MR TAKAGI CHOSE HIS PEOPLE WELL]   Reed Fish, director and screenwriter. REED FISH Yeah, I think Holly was portrayed pretty sympathetically. I mean, maybe not in the context of the late 80s where it’s like some affront that she’s going to use her maiden name. But you know, she was a good boss, right? She had a pregnant assistant she was always looking out for her. And she was someone who seemed to put her team members above herself, you know she was in a situation, a hostage situation, and she seemed to be looking out for everyone else before her. So it’s pretty sympathetic. Holly’s office is decorated with the trappings of one of her other roles: mother. Images of her children play a pivotal role in the plot of the film, even if they barely appear in the movie themselves. Pictures of her and her kids fill the shelf behind her desk. In frustration, Holly slams one family portrait facedown on the shelf, hiding the only evidence of her marriage to John from Hans. And Hans finds that portrait when reporter Richard Thornberg interviews little Lucy McClane on TV – Holly’s horrified face at seeing the McClane children on camera gives her connection away. For his part, John spends a moment looking at pictures of his kids in his wallet, a reminder of the way things used to be, and how he’d like them to be again. We never actually see Holly with her children. This makes sense narratively, as pretty much the entire movie takes place at her office just as the Christmas party starts. It’s hard to say how Holly is as a mother, but we do get a short scene with her on the phone with her daughter Lucy. [CLIP - DIE HARD - HOLLY - ON THE PHONE WITH LUCY]   Holly’s tone becomes warm, and she smiles to herself as she talks to her daughter. She’s comforting and reassuring without promising too much – after all, Holly doesn’t even know if John will make it home for Christmas. The ability for Holly to work a demanding job while still having children is a dilemma faced by working women in a way that working fathers never seem to worry about. It also speaks to class and racial divisions, where we must acknowledge that Holly is extremely privileged to even attempt to have it all. Holly relies on her housekeeper Paulina to watch her children while she’s at work. It makes me think about that scene in the awful, awful Sex and the City 2 movie where Charlotte and Miranda complain about how hard motherhood is when they both have full-time help, and they cheers their Cosmo cocktails in honor of the “women without help.” Yeah, thanks Sex in the City 2, thanks for that shoutout from two women having cocktails at a resort in Abu Dhabi. Die Hard of course doesn’t go in depth on this issue, but we get a glimpse of it. [CLIP - DIE HARD - HOLLY - ON THE PHONE WITH NANNY]   KATIE WALSH I also think it’s interesting to think about her relationship with her nanny. And how upper class working women often rely on women of color and that type of domestic labor in order to both have kids and be in the working world. So there are multiple industries and levels of classes that are going on in the sense of, how do I be a working woman and be a mother and be a wife, and it’s sort of like, one’s gotta go for Holly, and she’s gonna be a mom and she’s gonna be a working woman but she can’t really be a wife. So you see that struggle, and I think at one point she says to the nanny, “What would I do without you?” and it’s such a small moment but it really illustrates that you really can’t be everything to all people at all times in those roles. Die Hard’s emotional arc for its lead character, John, hinges on his relationship with his wife. Now, we know Holly is a good employee and boss. We think she’s probably a pretty good mom; it’s hard to tell but we don’t have anything totally contradicting that. But Holly as a wife – this is where she most obviously can’t have it all. By prioritizing her other two roles, Holly shirks her role as a wife. She leaves John behind, even leaves his name behind. Holly’s use of her maiden name becomes a particular sticking point in the film. [CLIP - DIE HARD - JOHN - YOU DIDN’T MISS MY LAST NAME]   Then again, John doesn’t sound like he was a supportive husband. [CLIP - DIE HARD - JOHN AND ARGYLE - GREAT JOB TURNED INTO A GREAT CAREER]   So, should we be blaming Holly? Is she putting herself and her career first, and dragging the kids along with her? Or is she doing what’s best for her family, and leaving John behind because he’s not going to support her in the way that she needs? ADAM STERNBERGH If you think too much about their marriage, though, it seems quite problematic. Like, she’s moved with the kids across the country and he stayed in New York. The movie doesn’t really explain why he would do that; it quite seems – at least to a modern perspective, it seems quite a dramatic choice for him to just refuse to move with his kids, and be separated from his kids. But again this is the sort of time period between like, on one end, Kramer Versus Kramer, and on the other end Mr. Mom and movies like that, so obviously there was a lot of issues that were being worked out in the movie theaters about men and women and families and who was the head of the house, and how we were going to like work that all out together. One way to get a read on what the movie is trying to say about Holly is to see how she compares to her husband. As the couple fights, whose side do you take? Is she treated more sympathetically, or is he? Opinions are split. Ed Grabianowski, pop culture writer and horror and fantasy author. ED GRABIANOWSKI I think the intent was to make Holly a little less sympathetic because I think in that era, the whole working woman image and the idea of it, a woman who puts her career before family is somehow neglecting her responsibilities or something like that. I guess it depends on how tied you are to the idea of a traditional family. So I think anyone who is is going to find Holly very unsympathetic, and anybody who’s more interested in feminism and equality among men and women is going to find Holly more sympathetic. So overall I find Holly sympathetic, but I definitely understand where John McClane is coming from. And I don’t feel unsympathetic towards him, because I don’t think like, he didn’t set out to do anything bad. He just reacted shittily to a situation that happened to his family, that wasn’t necessarily what he wanted. And that happens to people, you know, like regardless how you feel about family structure in general, like just stuff happens to your family and you’re like, I don’t know how to deal with this and sometimes you fuck it up and you have to go back and fix it. And that’s what John is doing. I guess in that way, it sort of comes out a tie. [CLIP - DIE HARD - HOLLY - I KNOW WHAT YOUR IDEA OF OUR MARRIAGE IS LIKE]   The fact that we don’t know what John and Holly were like at the beginning of their relationship can leave you wondering how they were even together in the first place. SASHA PERL-RAVER If you say that opposites attract, I get that, but I don’t think that opposites marry and have children and are then suddenly torn asunder by a move across the country, or whatever other things are the reasons that they actually broke up. I think that they – she is too no-nonsense to have been with him for as long as she was. She seems to me a very pragmatic woman who would not have taken his stuff, and they would not have gone to the altar. Unless it was like, a Las Vegas 36-hour situation. They make no sense to me. What do you think? SIMONE: I think they probably got together, they were younger; there was probably some hot chemistry. You know, they’re both attractive and there’s passion; they seem like passionate people. And then they actually get married and have kids and she shifts that passion to the career. And they don’t talk about the reasons for taking this job but I would have to assume, at least she’s telling herself she’s doing it for the sake of her family, that this will help take care of them or something. And just drifts apart from John and they sort of evolve as people on their own. And so when you see them later, they’ve already moved far apart. SASHA: And I always assumed she took the part because she was sick of dealing with this workaholic, New York City police guy who was always off with his trigger finger like at the ready, and she just wanted to have a nice, stable life so she got the job working for the Nakatomi Corporation so she could provide for her family and not have to worry about him. Or maybe! She was always afraid he was going to get himself killed on the job, so she pulled away to protect her heart and had to make sure she didn’t have to live on like a widow’s severance or whatever. What’s that called? SIMONE: It’s not like a pension. Like a benefit? SASHA: Whatever the death benefit would be. Maybe that’s what it is. Maybe she always knew that he was too wild. And she just wanted to make sure – she, she seems very stable. Very stable. It’s true that at first glance, John and Holly seem like opposites. But at their cores, they’re both very determined – and stubborn – people. Scott Wampler, news editor at Birth. Movies. Death., and host of the Trying Times podcast. SCOTT WAMPLER I think it’s complicated, to borrow some terminology from social media. I think that Holly is – I think that they’re both career people, and when you have two people that are that invested in their careers and then they have kids, shit gets complicated. Holly’s thing is that, you know, she got moved out to LA for a job, or she chose to move out to LA for this job. I can’t fault her for that. I also can’t fault John McClane for being mad that she pulled up roots and took the kids out there. I can imagine not being thrilled with that either. So I think it’s sort of a draw in terms of who my sympathies would lie with more. And I also think they’re both a little dickish in their own ways. In this sense, I do believe them as a couple. And I can see what attracted them to one another. You know, on a physical level, and just on a worldview level. You know? REED FISH I think that that whole Holly-John dynamic, but for me it felt like very just unreal? Because it didn’t seem like someone in her position would be with someone like him. And maybe it’s one of those things where their lives were, you know, when they first got together ten years ago their lives were much different, and then her career took off. But like I never really saw what the deal was, why they would ever be together, and why, say, anyone would ever want to be with John McClane romantically whatsoever, at all. ‘Cause clearly he is not someone you’d want to be married to, in my opinion. I feel like the dynamic between Holly and John – there’s good tension there, but I just didn’t find the relationship all that believable. It didn’t seem to me that she would be with him. I really have to do some mental gymnastics to figure out the scenario where those two characters would have gotten together and gotten married and had kids. These unanswered questions about the couple’s past leaves us unsure about their marriage’s future. But there are clear signs that both hope for a reconciliation – they just need to get out of their own ways first. When Holly calls her housekeeper Paulina, she tries to play it cool, but you know she wasn’t intending on using that spare bedroom if John came home. She likewise tries to act disinterested with John himself, not let on how bad she wants him... [CLIP - DIE HARD - HOLLY - I HAVE THE SPARE BEDROOM]   … Until, of course, she finally opens up. [CLIP - DIE HARD - HOLLY - I MISSED YOU]   And John has to blow it by picking a fight with her, right at that moment. But we know that John loves Holly. He spends the entire movie putting his life on the line for her. At the end of the film, we don’t know how their marriage will fare once they get home. But at least for a moment, we get a happy ending. [CLIP - DIE HARD - ARGYLE - RUN INTO EACH OTHER’S ARMS]   John and Holly exit Nakatomi Tower together, holding each other, happy to be safely reunited. When John introduces her to Al Powell, Holly takes a turn. [CLIP - DIE HARD - HOLLY - HOLLY McCLANE]   This one line always ends up at the center of analyses of Holly’s character. What does it mean? Is Holly going to give up her career and go back to being primarily a wife and mother? Is she just in a particularly generous mood because she just escaped with her life? In my personal opinion, I believe that because John introduced her to Al as Holly Gennaro, using her own preferred name, with no hesitation, that she felt it was time to make a concession. And if both John and Holly are willing at long last to make concessions, they have a future together. Well, if we ignore the sequel films, anyway. Another way to try and analyze how Die Hard treats its female lead is to compare it to other action films. So: Is Holly considered a damsel in distress? After our analysis of her character, we can tick off some pros and cons. Let’s say Holly is a damsel in distress. Well, she… Is literally being held hostage. And when the villain finds out her connection to the hero, the villain targets her specifically to cause the hero emotional pain. It can be argued that she has no agency, no ability to make decisions or act pro-actively to save herself: she just sits with the other hostages and waits. Her emotions betray her when she sees her kids on TV. And finally, we do get a peek at her bra by the end of the film. But what does Die Hard do differently? Holly’s not the only hostage, of course. She’s being held with men and other women. The villain first uses another man – Ellis – to try to manipulate our hero; Hans is using whoever he thinks might have a connection to John, regardless of gender. Holly doesn’t act fearful throughout the film – except for the very last bit where’s she’s hanging out of a 40th floor window, which, who could blame her? And finally, maybe she does have agency. Maybe she thought about trying to escape or sabotage the villain’s plan. But it could be that she assessed her options and decided that trying to go along with the villains’ plan would give her the best outcome. We know she’s an incredibly level-headed and pragmatic person. ADAM STERNBERGH And she gets a lot of great moments in the film. The film totally does not discard her or disregard her. She is very strong in her own right and gets to – and is quite instrumental as to how the whole thing plays out too. Which in hindsight might not seem like a big deal, but at the time it also felt like a break from the sort of standard action movie foil, heroine, damsel, exactly. Whether or not Holly is a damsel in distress leads us to our final question of this episode. Is Die Hard a feminist film? Yeah, okay, that even sounded funny to me. I’m gonna go ahead and say “No” here. I think that a film has to be doing more to actively challenge the patriarchy and promote women’s rights and explain women’s issues to be called feminist. But I do think that Die Hard was working a little harder than other films at the time. Die Hard is elevated above all other action films of its time in nearly every aspect: story, acting, the craft of the film. And I think in so doing, it put a little more thought into Holly too. Her character, with all her positive attributes and flaws, achieves a level of humanity that many other films deny their female leads. As we discussed in the last episode, what makes the character of John McClane such a beloved hero is his humanity. It makes sense that his wife would have her own humanity shine through, too. In our next episode, we’re going back to the beginning. We’re going to take an in-depth look at Roderick Thorp’s novel Nothing Lasts Forever to see where the seeds of Die Hard were sown. Thank you to our guests Ed Grabionowski, Sasha Perl-Raver, Scott Wampler, Reed Fish, Adam Sternbergh, 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!

The high-quality talent of the team that brought Die Hard to the screen is well-recognized. But to many, the secret ingredient to the movie's success was Bruce Willis and his portrayal of John McClane, an everyman police officer from New York, trapped in Nakatomi Tower at exactly the wrong time – and without even shoes on his feet. McClane takes on the role of reluctant hero to save his wife and the other innocent hostages, and defeat German terrorist-thief Hans Gruber. The McClane character has stuck in audiences' memories ever since, and sparked a change in how action heroes are characterized. So what makes John McClane so special? How much of it is his character, how much of it is the influence of other legendary heroes before him, and how much of it is Willis bringing the role to life?  Let us know what you think! Drop us a line at diehardwithapodcast@gmail.com, or visit our site at www.diehardwithapodcast.com   Links Baroness Von Sketch's Die Hard sketch Spin Magazine, How So I Married an Axe Murderer Wrecked One Writer’s Vision, Lost Several Stars, Bombed at the Box Office, and Became a Classic Anyway by Maggie Serota Halloween Unmasked on The Ringer network, with Amy Nicholson   Source Links A/V Club, Die Hard humanized (and perfected) the action movie A/V Club, The novel that inspired Die Hard has its structure, but none of its holiday spirit American Film Institute, 100 Greatest Heroes and Villains Another Angry Woman, Making fists with your toes: Towards a feminist analysis of Die Hard Deep Focus Review, The Definitives: Die Hard Empire, Empire Essay: Die Hard Review Film School Rejects, 31 Things We Learned From the ‘Die Hard’ Commentary Track MovieTime Guru, Die Hard: First Impressions Last Script Secrets, Die Hard analysis The Guardian, Die Hard at 30: how it remains the quintessential American action movie The Internet Movie Script Database, Die Hard shooting script Vulture, How Die Hard Changed the Action Game   Guests Reed Fish Jeremiah Friedman Shannon Hubbell Sasha Perl-Raver 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. This is episode three of the show, and I wanted to thank you all again for the amazing response we got for the last episode. I’ve been having a lot of fun talking with people about Die Hard for the podcast. First of all, the fact that people get SO EXCITED to talk about Die Hard and have SO MANY thoughts on it gets me so amped up. I’m telling you, if you’re socially awkward like me, just ask somebody what they think about Die Hard and you can have an amazing conversation for an hour and feel like you just made a new friend. Some of the folks I’ve talked to are friends I’ve had for years, and then sometimes they recommend their own friends, like, “you gotta talk to this guy, he fucking loves Die Hard,” and some have been people I’ve cold-emailed or cold-Tweeted who say yes to talking to a perfect stranger because they get to talk about Die Hard and have someone actually listen to them. And we just get to be big nerds about something we love, and it’s amazing. And also, now everyone knows how much I love Die Hard and everyone’s sending me Die Hard things they see on the internet and I’m loving it. Like I’m a pretty easy person to figure out; if you see something that’s Star Wars, or tiki, or horror movie, or Nine Inch Nails, or pizza, or kitty cat-related online, that’s gonna make my day. But now people know that Die Hard is one of my Things I Like, so they’re passing along the best stuff. One thing a friend sent me was this sketch by the comedy troupe Baroness Von Sketch, where this lady is at a party, complaining to her friend that she can’t meet guys, and her friend says she knows a trick. She stands back and says “OH MY GOD I CAN’T BELIEVE YOU HAVEN’T SEEN DIE HARD,” and then alllll the dudes come flocking. I almost died. Except now I know why I’m single, because clearly I’m doing the EXACT OPPOSITE. But that’s okay, I’m having too good of a time lady-splaining Die Hard to you all. Speaking of lady-splaining… I’ve had such a great response from ladies who are excited to see themselves represented in this genre. Die Hard gets thought of as a bro movie. And I am definitely not a bro. I got an email from a listener, Cindy, who says: I also really wanted to express how exhilarated I am that you are of the womanly persuasion. I am also a woman who loves Die Hard, and I know there are plenty of us out there, but that's not the popular perception. I've dearly wanted the perspective of other women who actually enjoy the film--it seems like millennial women are either turned off by the lone-hero-cop narrative, which I understand, or see Die Hard as the ultimate annoying dudebro movie, which is frustrating. It warms my heart, like literally makes it feel all fuzzy and nice, that this podcast exists, with a woman helming the way. Yes, girl. I absolutely feel you. And I wanted to give two quick shouts to two other women who are doing some exciting work. Maggie Serota wrote a piece for Spin magazine titled, “How So I Married an Axe Murderer Wrecked One Writer’s Vision, Lost Several Stars, Bombed at the Box Office, and Became a Classic Anyway.” So I Married an Axe Murderer is another favorite movie of mine – Mike Meyers is so, so funny, and I have immense nostalgia for the 90s and also love any movie set in the Bay Area. Maggie wrote the piece for the movie’s 25th anniversary, but also because it’s one of her all-time favorite movies. There’ll be a link in the show notes; go check that out. Also, Amy Nicholson, who you know from the podcasts The Canon and Unspooled, is doing an 8-part series called Halloween Unmasked for The Ringer podcast network, which is all about, obviously, the movie Halloween. I love horror movies, but Halloween was never one of my favorites, so I’m letting Amy take me away in her deep dive on the film. The podcast premiered on October 1st, so catch up on the first three episodes now. So, if you want to send me funny links and memes about Die Hard, or if you have other suggestions for female film critics’ works, drop me a line! Email Website Twitter Facebook Instagram 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 Shout out to our contributors… Cindy, who sent that lovely email earlier, and Paul! And special thanks to Paul for his support, as his encouragement means a lot to me on this particular project. 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. When we last left off, we talked about Die Hard’s place in the 80s action movie ecosystem. How it was molded by the conventions of the genre at the time, but also how it broke the mold – and improved upon it. There was a lot that elevated Die Hard beyond a conventional, empty, popcorn-chomp of an action movie. There was the amazingly neat and efficient script, the gorgeous work of cinematographer Jan De Bont, the genius of John McTiernan’s directing. But to many, the secret ingredient was Bruce Willis and his character of John McClane. So what makes John McClane so special? How much of it is his character, and how much of it is Willis bringing the role to life? Let’s take a step back. Before we figure out why McClane is an iconic action movie hero, let’s talk about what makes a good hero in any story. There’s been so much written about the Hero’s Journey, and archetypes and, well, I’m no Joseph Campbell. I think, for our purposes, we can really really really simplify it down to this: a hero is someone who is undergoing some sort of ordeal, and who is someone we root for. We root for them because we relate to them in some way, and view them with a mix of admiration and sympathy. To contextualize things a bit, let’s look at The American Film Institute’s 100 Greatest Heroes and Villains list. Now unfortunately, our John McClane didn’t make the list (although Hans Gruber came in 46th on the Villains list). But let’s look at the top 5: 1. Atticus Finch, To Kill a Mockingbird 2. Indiana Jones 3. James Bond 4. Rick Blaine, Casablanca 5. Will Kane, High Noon All men from different backgrounds, but who fall within our definition of hero. Further on in this episode, at least three of these heroes come up in comparison to John McClane. So, even though John himself doesn’t make the list, him being compared to Indiana Jones, Rick Blaine, and Will Kane on the regular, means he’s doing pretty all right. In order to root for our hero, the audience needs to see themselves in his shoes – or lack thereof. Someone who’s perfect is unrealistic, unbelievable – and really, don’t the people who pretend to be perfect kinda bug you? But a hero with flaws, a hero who’s the underdog – we want to see them overcome their obstacles. JEREMIAH FRIEDMAN I’m Jeremiah Friedman, and I’m a screenwriter. Mostly working on the film side of things. I don't know if you can set out to create an iconic movie hero. I mean I guess you can set out to create an iconic movie hero. Some of it feels like, you know, a little bit of like lightning in a bottle. I think, you want something that hasn't been seen before, and that feels emotionally relatable to people. They feel like they get that guy or that woman, and they just want to root for them. And I think that the original Die Hard, if we're going old school and not 2-3-4-5, what makes McClane so compelling is he's such an underdog you can root for the entire movie, and you just feel like he has the whole world against him. Sasha Perl-Raver, writer, correspondent, and the host of FX’s Movie Download. SASHA PERL-RAVER So I think that the best heroes have to be both heroic and flawed. I mean, I think about everybody from obviously John McClane, but even to Alexander Hamilton in the Hamilton musical, you’ve got somebody who is exceptional but has this one thing that is inevitably also their downfall. When you think of even Murtaugh and Riggs in Lethal Weapon – Mel Gibson’s character, the fact that he’s so broken, he’s on the verge of psychosis. He is a great cop and an excellent fighter and has all this combat training, but also comes from this incredibly fractured place, is what makes him really interesting. I think that heroes in general have to do the things that we wish we would do, say the things we wish we would say, and somehow manage the impossible. But they have to be somebody who you either want to emulate or relate to. I think those are all the key characteristics that make a great hero. First impressions are incredibly important, especially when meeting our hero for the first time. John McClane went through several iterations from his beginnings on the pages of a novel to the script to the screen. Let’s take a look at how McClane is introduced to us. In the 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever, written by Roderick Thorp, John McClane is actually Joe Leland, a retired cop turned private detective. Far from the handsome 30-something McClane we get in the movie, Leland is an older man – if you’ll recall, Frank Sinatra was offered a chance to reprise his version of Leland from his previous film The Detective – and Sinatra was 73 years old at the time. He turned it down. The book opens with him in the back of a cab on the way to the airport… aaand the cab has just crashed in a snowy fender-bender. There’s little physical description of Leland in the book, although we’re told he’s a “mature man” – and it makes sense, given that he’s trying to make his flight to Los Angeles to see his grown daughter and her children. But we quickly learn what kind of man Leland is. After his cab gets in an accident, Leland’s instant dislike for the driver of the station wagon his cab has hit mixes with his anxiety about missing his flight. The other man is a racist bully who tries to push the cab off the road as they try to leave – and holy shit, Leland just goes ahead and pulls his gun on him so he and his cab driver can make it to the terminal on time. But far from being a badass, Leland immediately regrets his impulsive action, and is left shaken as the adrenaline leaves him. He makes his his flight, and strikes up a flirtation with the stewardess, Kathi – spelled with an “i.” He kisses her (it’s okay, his ex-wife is long dead), and gets her number so they can meet up later. It’s actually kind of sweet. In the script and on the screen, we meet John McClane already at the end of his flight. On the page, he’s described as “mid-thirties, good-looking, athletic and tired from his trip. He sits by the window. His relief on landing is subtle but we notice.” The businessman next to him takes this opportunity to offer his advice about taking off his shoes and making “fists with his toes,” as we all remember. The plane finishes taxiing, and they begin to disembark. In the first draft: McClane is calm and reassuring as he flashes his badge and heads off the plane – after helping a lady with her bags. In the shooting script, he’s a little more relaxed, a little cockier. McClane is definitely more of a rascal here, a funny guy, a ladykiller. While the bit with the stewardess is pretty much cut out of the final film, let’s listen to how this scene plays out. [CLIP - DIE HARD - McCLANE ON THE PLANE] There’s a lot of work being done in these opening moments. It’s part of what’s so, so good about the Die Hard script. In under two minutes, we learn a lot about John McClane. The very first thing we see is something that comes up over and over again when discussing McClane’s character: he’s vulnerable. He’s afraid of flying, and it’s noticeable enough that the guy sitting next to him feels the need to reassure him, offer him advice. We also quickly learn: He’s a married man with kids (from the wedding ring on his finger, the teddy bear he’s carrying, and his disinterest in pursuing things with the stewardess he locks eyes with as he exits) He’s still good looking though, given the eyefuck the stewardess gives him He’s a policeman from New York with over a decade of experience He’s armed (I guess being armed on a plane was cool in 1988; I don’t know, I was born in ‘83 so this concept is still really weird to me) He’s a bit of a wiseguy, using humor to break the tension as the businessman becomes visibly concerned over that gun There are so many other ways that McClane could have been introduced. We could have seen him in the cab ride to the airport. We could have seen him deep in conversation with the stewardess. We could have even seen him already in Los Angeles, or even alllll the way back in New York before he even began his trip. But here, we cut right to the chase, and are shown the most important things we need to know just as the main action starts. John McClane’s vulnerability is probably the number one character trait that comes up when discussing him. But a close second is his being “a guy.” He’s a guy, he’s a dude, he’s an everyman. He’s someone you know; he’s someone like you. He’s relatable. JEREMIAH FRIEDMAN He's not super jacked up, he seems more like an ordinary guy more or less. And he's got relatable issues. He's got a problem with his marriage, he kind of fucked up his marriage. He's got this blue collar job that seem pretty routine, he's going to be crashing on a friend's couch. He's kind of a fish out of water, which is a big part of the movie too. He doesn't feel anything like Los Angeles as Los Angeles as portrayed in the movie. He's right at the Christmas party, he's uncomfortable in the limo. Everything that gets thrown at him is outside of his comfort zone. And you are very much with him the whole movie. So you're kind of along for the ride and on his side to a certain extent. We’ve all been there. We’ve all hated flying, we’ve all argued with our significant others, we’ve all been at parties we don’t want to be at. We’ve been John McClane. And so when John is faced with extraordinary circumstances, it leads the audience to put themselves into John’s place and wonder what they would do. According to Vulture.com, “Die Hard is rightly situated as a visceral experience because John McClane becomes such a direct surrogate for the audience; it becomes a ‘what would you do’ scenario, and an exercise in improvisation. John McClane is a street cop, flying through this thing by the seat of his pants, just like we would.” Scott Wampler, news editor at Birth. Movies. Death., and host of the Trying Times podcast. SCOTT WAMPLER And, as you already pointed out the weakness that John shows during that first movie in particular, and the fear and the indecisiveness, all of that is key to making him and every man character, but also key to making him relatable to the audience. You can absolutely imagine yourself in John McClane shoes. He definitely does some heroic shit. He does some shit that I would probably be too cowardly to do. But, also like put in that position where you're running on adrenaline, I could feasibly imagine myself doing a lot of the stuff that John McClane does. Not beating up any like six-foot-five Russians, definitely, you know, but like the other stuff. You know, he’s wiley, he thinks on his feet, he’s a smart guy. He’s clever. REED FISH I’m Reed Fish, I’m a director and screenwriter. I feel like John McClane, to me, was not an emotionally relatable character, but I feel like in the predicament that he was in, it was relatable to me because I felt like, Oh, you know, if push came to shove I could probably do those things too. Where in a typical Schwarzenegger movie, like in Predator or something, I don't think there was ever a moment where I was like, Oh yeah I think I could do that. So I feel like John McClane is a proxy for someone who, you're like me and you think you're witty, you think you're clever, you think you're smart. Well, I certainly I could outsmart Hans Gruber. Well except I'm bigger so I don't think I could have fit in that air shaft. SIMONE: Well it's a lot easier to picture yourself like I can probably move a panel on an elevator shaft, but I don't think I could wrestle a helicopter out of the sky. REED: Yeah, yeah, basically. And I remember in Commando, Schwarzenegger jumps off the airplane as it’s taking off, and jumps into a swamp. And you’re like, okay – not that you think he could do that, but you think yeah, I’m not going to do that. So I would have just been on the plane to South America. As we mentioned previously, that relatability comes not just through John looking and acting realistically, but also because he’s not a perfect person. He’s fucked up. SCOTT WAMPLER I think John McClane’s kind of an asshole, you know, but he’s a loveable asshole, you know? When John McClane is an asshole to people, they kinda had it coming. You know what I mean? Like particularly in the case of the terrorists, but also him giving sass to Ellis, or whatever. He's definitely more of a dick to his wife and he needs to be. But also just to speak as a devil's advocate here we don't – we could some of their backstory, but we don't know everything that happened between John and Holly up until that point. I'm sure he has his own reasons to be mad, and I'm not here to judge them. But he strikes me as a likable guy. Definitely a guy I would get a beer with. I would love to ask this guy about his history and his stories. He’s personable. He’s an asshole, but he’s personable. REED FISH John McClane is kind of a dick. And I was quite struck by that, just how much of a dick he was in the setup of the movie, in terms of the relationship with his wife and his non-existent relationship with his kids. He's not someone I really wanted to succeed. I did not find him sympathetic. But, that said, once it gets going, and he's ingenious, and he's clever, and obviously Bruce Willis at that moment had quite a lot of charisma, by the end, you are pulling for him. Even though for me, it was kind of bittersweet because you're like, oh, he's such a dick. And here’s the thing: John McClane knows he’s a dick. And he hates himself for it, and he can’t get out of his own way. As John McTiernan and Bruce Willis worked on the character, they came to the realization that at his core, John McClane is a man who does not like himself very much, but is doing the best he can in a bad situation. SASHA PERL-RAVER In 80s action movies, again, like Lethal Weapon, Die Hard, that self-loathing is something that propels these characters to do something beyond themselves, which is sort of interesting. Like, I am not good enough to survive, so all of these other people should survive instead of me. Because any normal rational human being would not do the stuff that John McClane does, except that he feels he is not worthy of anything else. Until he jumps off the roof and ties the fire hose around his stomach and says please don't let me die. That's the one time where you're like, Oh, he doesn't have a death-wish, he's not a complete maniac, he’s still trying to get through it. But yeah, the self-loathing is I think a great character trait. But the key to John’s success within the plot is his flaws. The very characteristics that drive his wife, his captain, the LAPD down on the ground completely crazy are the ones that undo Hans Gruber and his plan. Adam Sternbergh, novelist, contributing editor to New York Magazine, and pop culture journalist. ADAM STERNBERGH If you were to renumberate his flaws, he’s very stubborn. But then in a sense all the things that are presented as personality flaws in the beginning like his sort of pig-headedness and unwillingness to capitulate to his wife’s career decisions and things like that, they end up sort of being qualities that help him prevail because he’s just so ridiculously persistent against these terrorists. Yep. Just being annoying is enough to start unravelling the calm, cool, collected terrorists. So I mentioned last episode that I created a Die Hard D&D character alignment chart, because I am a huge nerd. It actually ended up being pretty helpful as I looked more into McClane’s character. So, in case you haven’t played Dungeons and Dragons before, a character alignment chart is chart that categorizes the “ethical and moral perspectives of player characters, non-player characters, and creatures.” It helps you create a character, and gives you guidelines to how a character will behave and react to new situations. If you look at it, it’s nine squares in a three-by-three grid. Each square has a character in it along with their alignment, which is determined by where it sits on the rows and columns of the chart. The first row is “lawful.” Using the third edition of Dungeons and Dragons rules, lawful “implies honor, trustworthiness, obedience to authority, and reliability. On the downside, lawfulness can include closed-mindedness, reactionary adherence to tradition, judgmentalness, and a lack of adaptability.” The second row is “neutral.” The third row is “chaotic.” This “implies freedom, adaptability, and flexibility. On the downside, chaos can include recklessness, resentment toward legitimate authority, arbitrary actions, and irresponsibility.” Switching directions, the first column is “good.” Should be pretty self-explanatory, but, just in case, it “implies altruism, respect for life, and a concern for the dignity of sentient beings. Good characters make personal sacrifices to help others.” The second column is “neutral.” The third column is “evil.” This “implies harming, oppressing, and killing others. Some evil creatures simply have no compassion for others and kill without qualms if doing so is convenient or if it can be set up. Others actively pursue evil, killing for sport or out of duty to some malevolent deity or master.” Whether or not you ever actually play D&D, I really recommend learning more about character alignments. It’s not a perfect system for creating deep, complex characters, but if you’re a writer or just a fan of storytelling, it can unlock some interesting insights. I categorized John McClane as “chaotic good.” But Simone, you say, John McClane is a police officer! Shouldn’t he be lawful? Well, not really. He’s a police officer, yes, but we know he doesn’t always play by the rules. [CLIP - DIE HARD - TONY AND JOHN - YOU’RE A POLICEMAN] We know that John improvises, taking in the situation as it lies and creating ad hoc solutions just to get through, moment to moment. He doesn’t have a long-term plan other than to vaguely somehow rescue Holly and the other hostages if possible. That John is also characterized as “good” is pretty obvious. He doesn’t want to hurt anyone if he doesn’t have to, and he wants to protect his wife and other innocent people. Even if those people aren’t exactly on his side. [CLIP - DIE HARD - JOHN TRIES TO CALL OFF THE FBI] So how does this make John the perfect guy to defeat Hans Gruber. Well, Hans is “neutral evil.” The neutral comes from Hans having no loyalty to anyone other than himself. He’s not technically on the side of the law, but he’s also not an agent of chaos. To lend some perspective, Deputy Police Chief Dwayne T Robinson is Lawful Evil (he follows the law but in so doing fucks things up and is a total dick about it), and Karl is Chaotic Evil (he’s a wildcard, willing to disobey even Hans if it’ll get him the revenge he’s after). Hans has planned this Nakatomi takeover down to the minute. He knows everything about the building, the vault, Takagi… [CLIP - DIE HARD - HANS FINDS TAKAGI] … and he knows step by step what needs to be done to pull off this heist. [CLIP - DIE HARD - HANS - I PRESENT THE FBI] Hans has accounted for everything. Except for one thing. [CLIP - DIE HARD - JOHN - I WAS INVITED BY MISTAKE] John McClane is something Hans could have never, ever predicted. I like to think that somewhere, Hans had a guest list of the entire party and had checked everyone out to some degree. But John wasn’t expected to come. Hell, even Holly wasn’t sure that John was coming – his showing up was a surprise. So the one thing that Hans couldn’t see coming, the thing that Hans doesn’t know how to predict, is the thing that completely blindsides him. John’s chaotic behavior, a liability in his marriage and everyday life, is just what’s needed to bring Hans down. [CLIP - DIE HARD - JOHN - JUST A FLY IN THE OINTMENT] Plus, it drives Hans – and Karl, too – completely crazy. JEREMIAH FRIEDMAN There’s kind of the external stuff. Like at the beginning of the movie, he’s going with a very clear mission, he’s a man on a mission, he’s a guy who wants to get his wife back. And he has no interest in any of this Nakatomi terrorism crap. And then to get his wife back, he has to deal with Hans and all these people. But he also has to overcome his own thing, which is kind of part of the genius of the movie, which is what makes him such like a difficult, crappy husband is also what makes him so problematic for Hans. He’s kind of relentless, and he stubborn, and he’s belligerent and all these things that make him – you know, in that fight scene in Holly’s office in the middle of the Christmas party, and she leaves and he knocks his head on the bathroom wall, and starts ragging on himself – and he knows he’s the problem, in a sense, but he can’t help himself. And he becomes the problem for Hans in a way that we all love. And part of the fun of that movie is he’s not just killing guys, he’s getting inside, he’s pissing them off. You know there’s the moment when they send Karl and some people after him, and then Karl comes back and destroys the bar cart, and Holly’s like, “He’s still alive.” And her secretary is like, how do you know, and she’s like, “Only John can make somebody that angry.” But okay: John’s only skill isn’t making people mad. He’s a veteran police officer, and as he demonstrates, he’s a pretty good one. We see him putting together the clues. [CLIP - DIE HARD - JOHN - FAKE IDS AND EUROPEAN CLOTHING LABELS] Katie Walsh, film critic for the Tribune News Service and LA Times. KATIE WALSH And then you get John McClane, who’s just like – kind of just a guy. He’s a normal, everyday guy; he doesn’t have special training other than being a cop. He uses common sense and he’s not like a special forces guy he’s not a military dude. He’s just like, I’m just using my everyday knowledge of being a cop and applying that to this situation. So, in many ways he does fit the mold of this singular hero who’s resourceful and thinks on his feet and has, you know a specific set of skills, but it’s not so outside the realm of everyday possibility. SIMONE: He doesn’t have the Liam Neeson “set of special skills.” KATIE: No, no. You’re not like, Oh my god, this guy was in the special forces, you kind of look at him and go, you know, this guy is just a really good cop who happens to be very physically gifted and resourceful. Something I read that I really, really loved is how even though John is armed with a machine gun (ho ho ho), he uses it as so much more. From the blog “Another Angry Woman”: “And yet, in John’s hands, the primary function of the gun is not as a weapon. There are more instances within the film of John using the gun as some sort of tool than as something to kill or hurt people with... John is far more creative in his use of firearms. In his hands, a gun becomes a multitude of useful objects as he displays the kind of creative thinking that neurosexists like to term ‘feminine’ as opposed to the logical, analytical male approach. The gun, wielded by John, is a device for allowing escapes as a rig and a thing to get back into the building, as well as jamming a fan. It is also repeatedly used as a last-resort communication device, shooting to make noise and draw attention, shooting to direct a crowd away from explosive death.” John McClane, even though he’s presented as a tough, macho New York City cop, actually ends up subverting macho stereotypes throughout the film. In our last episode, we talked about the hulking meat-trees that starred in other 80s action movies. John McClane is already different in that, while masculine, he’s not masculinity on steroids. In fact, it’s the macho posturing of the forces around him: the LAPD and the FBI versus the terrorists, that creates a stalemate that forces McClane to act. JEREMIAH FRIEDMAN One of the moments I always like to think about and talk about when I'm talking about the movie, is what he jumps off the roof when the roof blows up. When he gets up there – first of all, he’s forced to jump off the roof ‘cause they're shooting at him and he's going to die. And before he does it, he's terrified and he says a prayer to God to please don't let him die. [CLIP - DIE HARD - JOHN - ON ROOF] And it makes him so human, and you've never really seen that and that kind of character before. He's not just doing it because he's a badass, he can do this. He’s doing it because he has to do it. And that's kind of the beauty of the movie. He keeps getting forced Into doing things he does not want to do. And he keeps trying to get out of it, in a way. But he's kind of, the movie plays with all the Western stuff, the Roy Rogers, he's the cowboy he's got to get the job done. But he's scared, and he's vulnerable, and he's angry, and he has very human reactions to the crazy things that are happening around him. So the aspirational quality I think is that you would be able to be a smart and brave and as tough eventually as McClane is. And you would die as hard as he does. I would go out in the... I wouldn't be Ellis, but I would go out pretty quickly. John – and the movie Die Hard itself – gets compared to cowboys in Westerns a lot. As Deep Focus Review puts it, “McClane is established as a newly envisioned but classical Western hero — an Easterner ‘goin’ out West’ to tame the frontier. Gruber, McClane’s nemesis throughout the film, even points this out later by referring to McClane as a cowboy.” And John is a cowboy, in a lot of ways. An honorable sheriff type, trying to save the townspeople with nothing but his wits and his grit. According to the site Script Secrets, “He is a cowboy: an individualistic man whose character is earthy and grounded in reality.” [CLIP - DIE HARD - HANS - GARY COOPER] And there it is. Even while he’s a cocky, swaggering cowboy, one of the cowboys John McClane resembles most is Gary Cooper’s Will Kane in High Noon, who was already an in-genre subversion of the cowboy trope. In High Noon, Will Kane learns of a dangerous enemy coming back into town in a mere couple of hours. It’s a man who he once sent to prison, who is now free and will certainly try to seek revenge. At first, Kane attempts to flee with his wife (played by Grace Kelly), but he feels compelled to end this threat to his life, and the safety of the townspeople. So he comes back to face him… but discovers that the townsfolk won’t help him. Kane is left alone to face Frank Miller. And he’s afraid. He’s visibly desperate and afraid. But with no other choice, he shows down with Miller and his gang, and – with a little assist from his wife – he takes them all out. McClane’s fear and vulnerability was the biggest twist in the action movie genre at the time. From Deep Focus Review again: “McClane is not an impervious robotic warrior carved from the template of the action movie gods. Embodied by Willis with pitch-perfect humanism, McClane bleeds, cries out in pain and emotional desperation, and has imperfections that become his trademark. One of the film’s most memorable characteristics is how much physical punishment McClane endures and how such wear amasses on him through the course of the film.” Or how wear doesn’t amass through the film – by the end of the movie, John’s lost his shirt alongside his shoes, and heads into his final confrontation with Hans almost stripped bare. SASHA PERL-RAVER Girl, what isn’t broken inside of John McClane? His marriage is broken, the smoking is broken, the bare feet - the bare feet is such a great example of a character whose vulnerability you just can't avoid. He obviously has a lot of interpersonal stuff going on with his wife, with his family, with wanting to save all these people. Also with just wanting to be good at his job. But you don't like the physical embodiment of it, as you see him get more like, cut up and bloodied, as he's running through the glass to get to exit, all of that stuff is such a great way to make the character somebody who you're like, “Oh, I see that.” I wonder if the movie got made now, if they would have allowed him to get his bloodied up as he does. Because he looks messed up by the end of the film, as well he should. JEREMIAH FRIEDMAN And that’s part of the fun of the movie. You watch him – they really put him through the ringer. He gets the crap beaten out of him in that movie, in a way that doesn’t really happen in the sequels as much. That’s kind of fun – you feel like he’s running this gauntlet, and at the end, when he wins, he earns it. He earns the right to kill Hans and save his marriage, because he’s really been put through hell by this entire experience. And again that goes back to the making him human: he’s bleeding, and he’s tired, and he’s angry and frustrated, and he’s reacting like a heightened human being would react as opposed to just a cartoon movie hero. The obvious physical manifestation of John’s vulnerability is his cut up feet. John was caught by surprise by the terrorist takeover, in the middle of a quiet moment when he is practically defenseless. But it’s his emotional vulnerability that makes us feel for him. And how the filmmakers show John’s emotional vulnerability is nothing short of genius. Deep Focus Review: “Some of McClane’s best moments are by himself as he talks himself through the situation. Whereas stone-faced lone heroes had machine-gunned their way through countless bad guys in action movies before, McClane just an average cop, after all, not even a super-cop... In this unpolished treatment of McClane, and the character’s ability to make observations about his own situation, he becomes instantly ‘real’ when compared to his unstoppable counterparts.” [CLIP - DIE HARD - JOHN - WHY DIDN’T YOU STOP THEM] KATIE WALSH You know, I love when he’s talking to himself when he’s alone in the building, and I think the script as kind of brilliant in the sense that he gets the radios, and so he can talk to everybody. They're all in different spots in the building, But he can talk to Al, he can talk to Hans, he can talk to all these different people. And that really keeps the story moving, and it also lets us understand him as a person and the way he presents himself. So I think that the way that they function the radios in that whole thing is so brilliant in terms of storytelling. But I also love when he’s just talking to himself, and he’s like “No, John, why didn’t you stop them, John.” And you can tell, he’s kind of got like anxiety or something, he’s, you know. Like, that's what I would say to myself if I was in that situation. “Aw, darn it, why did you do that?” So you relate to him in that way ‘cause you are getting some insight into his psyche. It’s not like you can’t understand him. You totally understand him. One scene in particular is the perfect example of John’s physical and emotional vulnerabilities intersecting. [CLIP - DIE HARD - JOHN AND AL - BATHROOM] To quote Empire Magazine, “McClane has narrowly escaped a gunfight and holes up in a bathroom to remove shards of jagged glass from his shredded feet. As he does so, McClane has a heartfelt back-and-forth with Reginald VelJohnson’s Al Powell, an LA flatfoot with whom he has forged a brotherly connection over a walkie-talkie. As their dialogue exchange continues, McClane — alone, badly injured and afraid — breaks down and starts sobbing. [In] Willis, audiences were suddenly confronted with a recognisably vulnerable hero who didn’t have all the answers, who didn’t laugh — or stoically squint — in the face of danger or death. Sure, he cracked wise, but his humour felt organic, a defence mechanism to keep him sane. Here was a hero who made Arnie and his muscle-bound ilk seem antiquated.” John’s relationships with other people are what keeps him going. His trying to ensure Holly’s safety is his sole motive throughout the movie. The thought of her helps him to push through his fear and pain. But it’s also his walkie-talkie relationship with fellow cop Al Powell that gives him the extra, in-the-moment support to stave off despair. SASHA PERL-RAVER What is the most important vulnerabilities that he has, is his yearning to be back with his wife. The relationship he has with Bonnie Bedelia, wanting to keep her safe, wanting to make sure that the mother of his child is okay, that’s huge. But also I love the relationship he has with Al, I think that's really, really special, and the way that he's able to latch on to this voice through the radio and they have such a strong bond and connection, is really beautiful. It’s bromance the way we wanna see it. Dudes supporting other dudes in this great way. From his feet to his emotions, from his relationship with his wife to his battle with the terrorists, John McClane’s story is a perfect example of external and internal conflict aligning. As Script Secrets puts it, “But what makes Die Hard into a superior script is the nexus between the Villain's Plan and the Protagonist's character arc... What makes John McClane the perfect protagonist for Die Hard is that the external conflict forces him to confront and solve an internal conflict, leading to a single solution which solves both problems and brings peace to the protagonist. It is only after he faces and conquers this internal conflict that he becomes strong enough to take on Hans (his external conflict) and rescue Holly and the other hostages. Without the external conflict from Hans' Plan, McClane would not have been forced to resolve this problem, and their marriage would have ended. The resolution for the external conflict and internal conflict intersect, creating a strong, organic plot.” Shannon Hubbell, editor-in-chief of LewtonBus.net. SHANNON HUBBELL And also, beyond the fact that he just happens to be there in the building, and he wants to get the bad guys and he wants to save all the hostages, he's there for an emotional reason. He shows up having screwed up his relationship with his wife. And he wants to save her. He has an emotional connection to what he's trying to do. Going back to Under Siege, Segal's character in that is just a cook who used to be a Navy Seal. And he just happens to be in the ship, and there's no real motivation for him being a total action movie bad ass other than him just naturally being an action movie bad ass. So yeah, McClane is extremely relatable. He wants to save his wife, he wants to preserve the relationship with his wife. And also by extension his kids and whatnot. He's a person who happens to be pretty damn good at killing people. SIMONE: Well you know the best arcs are the ones that we are on the outside what's happening on the inside. So he's literally fighting to save his wife. SHANNON: Yeah, absolutely. JEREMIAH FRIEDMAN And I would say the closest he comes to really arcing is the bathroom scene, when he’s pulling the glass out of his feet, and he’s on the radio with Karl – er, Al, not Carl Winslow… He’s on the radio with Al, and he kind of gives up and starts thinking that he’s not going to make it out. And he takes responsibility for the failure of his marriage. I think that’s pretty much an arc. I mean, he’s able to get someplace emotionally he wasn’t able to get earlier in the movie and from that, he kind of earns the epiphany of “what was Hans doing on the roof?” And then he goes up to the roof and there’s the C4 and all that stuff. But even with the impeccably plotted script and carefully built character of John McClane, the role could have easily fallen flat without that third element: the actor. (Or Fifth Element, heyo.) Remember, they wanted to cast pretty much anyone BUT Bruce Willis as the lead for this movie. They looked at everyone from Schwarzennegger and Stallone to Don Johnson and Richard Gere to Burt Reynolds and Robert De Niro. In the end, they took a huge, five million dollar gamble on Bruce Willis. But it worked. ADAM STERNBERGH But I think if you were to watch Die Hard and Raiders of the Lost Ark side by side, there’s something about the Indiana Jones character that seems a little bit more well-rounded than the John McClane character. But at the same time, you know, you might even say that about watching Casablanca or something like that. I mean, there’s many actors and many great characters in Hollywood history where the lead performance is essentially the actor’s extraordinary charisma carrying it, and it’s not something that any other actor could have brought to the role. And so sometimes I think you know, lightning just strikes and you end up with the right person in the right role and so in many ways I just feel like John McClane was, like, Bruce Willis; he was the embodiment of whatever it was that people loved about Bruce Willis, this kind of irascible, indefatigable charm that he had. SASHA PERL-RAVER I think that Bruce Willis certainly is a better actor. And is therefore better able to get the pathos across, and able to really deliver the lines without feeling like you learned them phonetically. Which is something you get a lot of in Schwarzenegger's early performances and even later performances.  SCOTT WAMPLER Well I also think Bruce Willis is an asshole but not a lovable one. I think the Bruce Willis at that point in his career, though, is not the Bruce Willis that we know today. You know, he was still humble, he started out as a bartender. I think Bruce Willis, when he made Die Hard, even though he had been on Moonlighting and was still kind of hot shit at that time, was – he hadn’t developed the full Bruce Willis ego that has sort of come to define him in his later years. People knew who he was because of Moonlighting, and a series of very entertaining Bartles & Jaymes commercials that I would encourage all of your listeners to go find on YouTube. That will make your fucking skin crawl with embarrassment. [CLIP - BRUCE WILLIS SEAGRAM'S COMMERCIAL] But, you know, he was not a Stallone or a Schwarzenegger. He wasn’t even a Van Damme. He was a guy. He was just a dude. And still doing Bogart a little bit. He’s still got that earthiness to him. SHANNON HUBBELL But also before die-hard established him as an action hero, much like Kurt Russell in Escape From New York, That was the first action role for Kurt Russell. He was in Disney movies before that. He was in The Computer Wore Tennis Shoes. And then John Carpenter put an eye patch on him and some tattoos and told him to growl. And now he's an action star. And it was kind of the same thing with Bruce Willis. He was more of a comedic actor as I recall, before that. Again tying in with the idea of McClane being more relatable, everyman-ish action hero, having someone who's completely not associated with the action genre before that, really makes that character work. He's just a dude. He's just a balding dude. KATIE WALSH But yeah, he’s charming, he’s funny, he’s a better actor. He’s got the gift of gab. It’s a different star persona and it’s a different acting ability, completely. John McTiernan has said something similar. “Bruce is most endearing when he’s being a smart-ass. That’s the essence of his stardom is somebody’s pointing a gun right between his eyes and he goes, ‘Oops.’ That irreverence is what we seem to love about him.” Willis even improvised the “Hi, honey” at the end of the movie. [CLIP - DIE HARD - JOHN - HI HONEY] As Empire Magazine put it, “It’s testament to Willis that he not only thwarts Gruber’s heist, but also Rickman’s own audacious attempt to walk away with a multi-million dollar movie. Willis’ performance in Die Hard is hungry and committed, redolent of a man visiting the Last Chance Saloon, and it worked handsomely, turning him into a bona fide megastar. What’s more, his McClane — a likeable mix of working-stiff neuroses, desperate heroics and wise guy sardonics — changed the face of action heroes forever.” In the end, Bruce Willis’s John McClane gave us someone to root for. All of the character’s influences, from reacting to other action heroes to Gary Cooper to Bruce Willis himself, create someone who is… a human. And no matter what extraordinary things we see onscreen, telling human stories is where film is most powerful. It’s why Die Hard rises above its peers – all thanks to John McClane. In our next episode, we’ll take a look at John’s wife Holly. Whether she goes by Gennaro or McClane, Holly’s role as a working woman, a wife, and a mother brings forward the changing role of women in 1980s film. Thank you to our guests Jeremiah Friedman, Sasha Perl-Raver, Scott Wampler, Reed Fish, Adam Sternbergh, Katie Walsh, and Shannon Hubbell. 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!

In an absolutely EPIC Cine-File, John and Steve are joined by FX Movie Download's Sasha Perl Raver to discuss Quinten Tarrantino's groundbreaking, 1994 film, Pulp Fiction. --- This episode is sponsored by · Anchor: The easiest way to make a podcast. https://anchor.fm/app --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/thecine-files/message

The Total Tutor Neil Haley will interview John Campea of Comic-Con HQ's Film HQ. Film HQ is an entertainment news series analyzing hot topics and upcoming releases in the world of cinema. Executive produced and hosted by John Campea, episodes explore film through panels, industry recaps, reviews, on-location segments, and celebrity interviews. Campea invites a rotating panel of pop culture experts each week that have already included Jon Schnepp, Whitney Moore, Sasha Perl-Raver, and Scott Mantz. ABOUT JOHN CAMPEA Film director, film critic, video blogger and podcaster, founder of The Movie Blog and former editor-in-chief of AMC Movie News. Previously senior producer of Collider Movie Talk.  

For the past 10 months, we've explored a theme that is pertinent to all artists. Let's sum this season up and get the definitive answer to this crucial question.If you're any kind of artist, but especially if you're one trying to earn a living at your craft, it's vital to both your creative fulfillment as well as your professional longevity, to find "your voice" and develop a signature style. On September 1 of last year, Radio Film School launched with a mission to get to the bottom of this answer. After almost 90 interviews, we have determined what I can safely proclaim is a definitive strategy.In our season 1 finale, we'll revisit old interviews, introduce new ones, and summarize what essentially amounts to a 4-stop process; and we do it in a way that is classic Radio Film School--from stories to movie clips to an eclectic score, you'll be inspired after hearing this episode.Be sure to listen past the credits to get a sneak peek at season 2 and the collaboration we're doing with Stillmotion and Muse Storytelling to document the making of their The Remarkable Ones series. It's very cool! Sign up for our email list to be notified when we start. Also, email subscribers will get access and see my short film, "Mixed in America: Little Mixed Sunshine."Who You HeardIn this episode, we hear from:Zaki Lisha of De Anza College's Film & TV ProgramAdam Forgione of Pennylane ProductionsElaine McMillion Sheldon, Peabody Award-winning filmmaker behind the interactive documentary "Hollow"Dustin Blake of Indy Productions (see his "tatted-up" wedding video below)Ryan Koral of Tell Agency and Studio SherpasBrett Culp, director of “Legends of the Knight"Video Essayist extraordinaire Adam Westbrook of delve.tvKathleen Shannon of the Being Boss podcast as a guest on CreativeLive's Power. Profit. Pursuit. Podcast (ep. #37)Sasha Perl-Raver, movie and TV critic, actress, writer and co-host on Collider TV TalkWho You Heard in the Audio MontagesIn the opening montage of soundbites, here's who you heard:Commercial photographer and author Doug MenuezPhilip Bloom (internationally renown DP)Ray Roman of Ray Roman FilmsTravel filmmaker Brandon LiSal D'Alia, the filmmaker behind Adorama's TTL Film SeriesCut.com CEO and Creative Director, Mike GastonPatrick Moreau, co-founder of Still Motion and Muse StorytellingKevin Shahinian of Pacific PicturesAlex Ferrari, host of Indie Film HustleIn the Radio Film School Preview you heard:Kevin ShahinianRyan Booth of Serial Box TVJeff Cannata of the Slashfilmcast and We Have ConcernsBrett Culp In the credits montage you heard:Brett CulpPatrick MoreauSasha Perl-RaverReach OutIf you have a question about the movie business you'd like answered, or if you just want to drop us a line to say "Hi", email us at radiofilmschool@daredreamer.fm. Better yet, use the "Send Voicemail" button at the bottom of our website to leave a voicemail message. Follow Ron on Twitter @DareDreamerFM, or follow the show @RadioFilmSchool. Join the discussion at facebook.com/radiofilmschool.Music in this EpisodeMusic was curated from FreeMusicArchive.org. In order of appearance, the music in this episode:Reflectionsby Scott Holmes (CC BY)Fire Aheadby Jahzzar (CC BY)Prelude No. 4by Chris Zabriskie (CC BY)Cylinder 6by Chris Zabriskie (CC BY)A Man with a Golden Soulby MC Cullah (CC BY-SA)Please Listen Carefully by Jahzzar (CC BY-SA)Wonder Cycleby Chris Zabriskie (CC BY)Main Stemby U.S. Army Blues (Public Domain)Simple Hop by Broke for Free (CC BY)Green Fieldsby Scott Holmes (CC BY)Fall and Riseby Scott Holmes (CC BY)God’s Willby lo-fi is sci-fi (CC BY)Back to Buxtonby Alec’s Band (CC BY)Click here to learn about Creative Commons licenses and meanings.VideosCreative Mornings Doc - The trailer and full Creative Mornings documentary I created.Dustin Blake's Vegas Wedding - may contain adult content.The Podcasts Which Have Influenced Radio Film School the Most99% InvisibleThis American LifeTED Radio HourStartUp PodcastRadioLab

There are few filmmakers in the history of the craft who are as revered for their work, and as associated with a particular style, as Sir Alfred Hitchcock.Hitchcock's work is so distinctive, his name has become an adjective to describe a well-executed, suspense thriller or drama (e.g. David Fincher's "Se7en" is a Hitchcockian thriller filled with mystery, murder, and suspense-filled thrills worthy of the master of suspense himself.)No doubt that if you're passionate about filmmaking and cinema, you've seen plenty of interviews and/or video essays about Hitch. But as usual, my hope is to share some insight that you might not have heretofore come across.This week's episode is chock full of experts:Sasha Perl-Raver: movie critic, television journalist, actress, and co-host of Collider TV Talk as well as FX Download.Jeffrey Michael Bays: filmmaker, contributor to Movie Maker and NoFilmSchool, and creator of the web film series "Hitch20," a documentary series about the 20 episodes of "Alfred Hitchcock Presents" directed by Hitchcock himself.Forris Day: indie filmmaker, editor, and host of the entertainment podcast Coffee Shop Conversations and the YouTube show, "Rolling Tape."Alex Ferrari: indie filmmaker and host of the Indie Film Hustle podcast.David Shulman: executive director of the Seattle Film Institute.Adam Westbrook: professional video essayist and creator of Delve.tv, whose 8 video essays have over 1 million views collectively and 6 Vimeo Staff Picks.Brandon McCormick: founder and director at Whitestone Motion Pictures.John P. Hess: director of the popular filmmaking educaation site, FilmmakerIQ.com.Music in this EpisodeMusic was curated from FreeMusicArchive.org. In order of appearance, the music in this episode:Andrew Bissett: Cultural Dis-easeby Sergey Schepkin (CC BY-SA)Shower Sceneby Josh Woodward (CC BY)When You Leaveby Sergey Cheremisinov (CC BY)Faster Does Itby Kevin MacLeod (CC BY)Fogby Sergey Cheremisinov (CC BY)Departure (Skarsvat Airport)by Ars Sonor (CC BY-SA)Origin Iby Scott Holmes (CC BY)Origin IIby Scott Holmes (CC BY)Click here to learn about Creative Commons licenses and meanings.VideosCheck out the blog post for this episode to see some of the films and videos mentioned in this episode, including:The Episode of Hitch20 Ron participated in.Ron's favorite video essay by Adam WestbrookBrandon McCormick's "Fear Itself"BTS video of "Fear Itself"SponsorsWipster.ioMuse Storytelling by StillmotionDare Dreamer FM Premium Membership

Superhero movies are all the rage lately. Believe it or not, there is a lot filmmakers can learn from them. Today is Part 1 in a new Short Ends series.This week we hear from:Robert Meyer Burnett: A 25+ year veteran of Hollywood, Rob is a director, editor, frequent co-host on Collider Heroes, and self-proclaimed comic book geek. Currently directing the Star Trek fan film Axanar (which raised over $1 million in crowdfunding).Sasha Perl-Raver: movie critic, television journalist, actress, and co-host of Collider TV Talk as well as FX Download.Brett Culp: director of the documentary "Legends of the Knight", a feature-length documentary about the legend and story of Batman inspiring people living with debilitating or even life-threatening illnesses. Through the success of that film, Brett has since founded "The Rising Heroes Project," a non-profit that creates uplifting films to support charitable organizations and inspire communities. They are now working on their follow-up to "Legends" with "Look to the Sky."Music in this EpisodeMusic was curated from FreeMusicArchive.org. In order of appearance, the music in this episode:Subdivision of the Massesby Philipp Weigl (CC BY)Dracula, Killed by Bondby Ian Alex Mac (CC BY)Bernard FINALby Ian Alex Mac (CC BY)Click here to learn about Creative Commons licenses and meanings.VideosSuperman 75th Anniversary Animated ShortMan of Steel Review - Nostalgia CriticThere's A New StoryBuilder App from Muse Storytelling by StillmotionMuse Storytelling by Stillmotion has released a new app that will change the way you tell stories. Use it to work out the four essential "P's" of every story: People, Places, Plot and Purpose. Add photos to help you visualize the story. You can even join a community of like-minded creatives who can all collaborate with you on your story's development. Head on over to buildstory.org and sign up for a free 14-day trial. No credit card is required.Wipster + Adobe Premiere Pro. Wipster + Vimeo.We're thrilled to have Wipster join the Radio Film School family. Wipster is a leading video collaboration tool, allowing you to share your video with clients and colleagues and collect feedback. Go to Wipster.io to sign up. And if you're used to using Vimeo to share links with clients, no worries. Wipster has exclusive integration with Vimeo. Go from Vimeo to Wipster and back again, seamlessly.Wipster also has a built-in panel that allows you to share your video directly from within Premiere Pro, and you'll be able to see client's feedback on that video directly within Premiere. Check out their 1-minute walk-through.Grow in Your Craft and CareerWe're also supported by YOU, the listeners. Become a Dare Dreamer FM Premium member and gain access to bonus episodes, ebooks, templates, and other resources to help you grow in your craft and career.

The episode we've all been waiting for is finally here. Sasha Perl-Raver, host of FX's Movie Download (airing Fridays at 8pm), joins The Blaze with Lizzie and Kat podcast this week to talk about the episode of Beverly Hills 90210 in which Brenda loses her virginity to Dylan, Steve reveals he's adopted, and Andrea struggles with third-wave feminism. What we were drinking: Chandon champagneWhat we were eating: stuffed grape leaves and salted caramel mousse