It’s been 36 years since Die Hard hit the theatres and became a memorable action movie that still remains relatable in the entertainment industry. Providing a watershed genre moment, while building up the careers of Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman, Die Hard also featured often forgotten actors like Robert Davi.
Arnold Schwarzenegger | image: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Playing the character of badass FBI Special Agent “Big” Johnson, Robert Davi offered a memorable performance despite being a lesser-known scene-stealer. But while his character initially starts by saving the day, he gradually becomes dumber and dumber in the film. This character deterioration was something that disappointed Davi’s close friend, Arnold Schwarzenegger, during the film screening.
Robert Davi Watched Die Hard Screening with Arnold Schwarzenegger
From working in 1986 classic films like Raw Deal to becoming close friends, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robert Davi have often appreciated each other’s works from time to time.
Arnold Schwarzenegger | image: The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
Playing the character of badass FBI Special Agent “Big” Johnson, Robert Davi offered a memorable performance despite being a lesser-known scene-stealer. But while his character initially starts by saving the day, he gradually becomes dumber and dumber in the film. This character deterioration was something that disappointed Davi’s close friend, Arnold Schwarzenegger, during the film screening.
Robert Davi Watched Die Hard Screening with Arnold Schwarzenegger
From working in 1986 classic films like Raw Deal to becoming close friends, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Robert Davi have often appreciated each other’s works from time to time.
- 3/6/2024
- by Krittika Mukherjee
- FandomWire
Project Funding
The Asian Cinema Fund, a bursary scheme for film and documentary projects operated alongside the Busan International Film Festival, has announced six Korean recipients and seven hailing from elsewhere in Asia. The fund was put on hiatus during the two years of Covid, which also reduced the festival in size and turned the Asian Contents & Film Market into a virtual event. Three winners – “In the Land of Brothers,” by Raha Amirfazali, “Life I Stole,” by Putri Purnama Sugua and “Smart City,” by Rohin Raveendran – each receive KRW10 million for script development and are invited to participate in the Acfm’s Asian Project Market. Three films currently in post-production — “Birth,” by Yoo Jiyoung, “Juhee from 5 to 7,” by Jang Kunjae and “Mariam,” by Arvind Pratap — will receive in-kind support for digital intermediates, Dcp production, sound mixing and sub-titling, and are expected to premiere as finished works at the Busan festival.
The Asian Cinema Fund, a bursary scheme for film and documentary projects operated alongside the Busan International Film Festival, has announced six Korean recipients and seven hailing from elsewhere in Asia. The fund was put on hiatus during the two years of Covid, which also reduced the festival in size and turned the Asian Contents & Film Market into a virtual event. Three winners – “In the Land of Brothers,” by Raha Amirfazali, “Life I Stole,” by Putri Purnama Sugua and “Smart City,” by Rohin Raveendran – each receive KRW10 million for script development and are invited to participate in the Acfm’s Asian Project Market. Three films currently in post-production — “Birth,” by Yoo Jiyoung, “Juhee from 5 to 7,” by Jang Kunjae and “Mariam,” by Arvind Pratap — will receive in-kind support for digital intermediates, Dcp production, sound mixing and sub-titling, and are expected to premiere as finished works at the Busan festival.
- 7/15/2022
- by Patrick Frater
- Variety Film + TV
Link Tank: The London Action Festival Set to Deliver the World’s Greatest Screening of Die Hard Ever
Announced today, award-winning actor, screenwriter, director, producer and jazz vocalist, Robert Davi will perform at the very special event and screening of Die Hard. We’ll be there! Come join us in London for the first-of-its kind Action Festival.
“Davi is one of the film industry’s most recognized and beloved tough guys. He is known for
his portrayal of the opera singing baddie in The Goonies and as one of the most popular James Bond villains Franz Sanchez in Licence to Kill. His role as FBI Special Agent Big Johnson in Die Hard remains a fan favourite.”
Buy Tickets Here
Nope comes out next week, but the world around this film is still very mysterious. Here are all we know so far.
“If you’re at all a follower of good horror movies, then you’re probably just as excited as we are for Jordan Peele’s upcoming scary-looking,...
“Davi is one of the film industry’s most recognized and beloved tough guys. He is known for
his portrayal of the opera singing baddie in The Goonies and as one of the most popular James Bond villains Franz Sanchez in Licence to Kill. His role as FBI Special Agent Big Johnson in Die Hard remains a fan favourite.”
Buy Tickets Here
Nope comes out next week, but the world around this film is still very mysterious. Here are all we know so far.
“If you’re at all a follower of good horror movies, then you’re probably just as excited as we are for Jordan Peele’s upcoming scary-looking,...
- 7/14/2022
- by Lee Parham
- Den of Geek
Though Robert Davi is best known for his lengthy acting career, but his recent professional singing career has garnered him much acclaim, especially for his first album “Davi Sings Sinatra — On The Road To Romance,” which placed at #6 on the Billboard Jazz charts. Now, a new comedic and poignant documentary “Davi’s Way” follows Davi on his quest to honor Sinatra on his 100th birthday by meticulously recreating his historic “Main Event” concert at Madison Square Garden. In the vein of “This Is Spinal Tap” and “Curb Your Enthusiasm,” Davi and his assistant must frantically prepare for the night in question. Watch an exclusive clip from the film below.
Read More: Hamptons International Film Festival Announces Spotlight Films, World Cinema and Shorts Programs
The film is directed by Tom Donahue, who previously directed documentaries such as “Casting By,” which tells the story of legendary casting director Marion Doherty, and “Thank You for Your Service,...
Read More: Hamptons International Film Festival Announces Spotlight Films, World Cinema and Shorts Programs
The film is directed by Tom Donahue, who previously directed documentaries such as “Casting By,” which tells the story of legendary casting director Marion Doherty, and “Thank You for Your Service,...
- 10/21/2016
- by Vikram Murthi
- Indiewire
It will surprise you less than Dory, that she's the new queen of the box office. Finding Dory, the sequel to Pixar's most beloved non-Toy based title with mainstream audiences (not with us though - we're Wall•E / Incredibles people round these parts), broke records when it swam into theaters Thursday night. The bankability of a little Hart (Kevin) and a Big Johnson (Dwayne "The Rock") made an impact in second position, as well, though it's worth noting that pairing them didn't remotely result in twice their usual opening weekend grosses (these are fairly typical for either of them. Maybe their fanbases are too similar?) Between those two movies requiring nearly 8,000 screens between them it was a rough weekend for other movies with most big and small releases losing a ton of movie houses (yes even Love and Friendship and The Lobster which both had strong momentum until they lost theaters.
- 6/19/2016
- by NATHANIEL R
- FilmExperience
Considering Dwayne Johnson‘s relatively newfound dedication as Hollywood’s action franchise Viagra and Kevin Hart becoming perhaps the biggest draw in comedy over the last few years, it was a mathematical certainty they would cross paths for their own action-comedy. The result is Central Intelligence, which markets itself as a “Little Hart and Big Johnson” teaming up to save the world from shadowy threats. If one finds Hart’s erratic fish out of water dynamic playing against Johnson’s calm, cool, and collected demeanor appealing, the quippy banter comes in spades. As mildly amusing as it can be, that’s just about all there is to this blandly plotted excuse to team up two of Hollywood’s biggest audience wranglers.
After being ridiculed by everyone — and to be clear, everyone — in his high school class except Calvin Joyner (Hart), Robbie Weirdicht (Johnson) has buried the pain deep inside. Twenty years later, he now goes by Bob Stone, transforming himself into a ridiculously ripped, deadly CIA agent while Joyner, once a beloved high school stand-out, has a dead-end accounting job and believes he leads as lame a life as possible. With their class reunion coming up, he accepts a Facebook friend request from the mysterious Mr. Stone, leading to a meet-up for dinner, quickly interrupted by all-out mayhem as a government manhunt ensues.
Rather than playing his usual action archetype, Johnson aims something for something else here and impressively pulls it off. Stigmatized as a child with no friends, after years of burrowing this trauma, his social awareness is a few steps off. Leading a lonely life, relying on pop culture references such as Sixteen Candles, Road House, and Pitch Black as his foundation, Johnson plays things goofily aloof with an underlying sadness as if he never matured beyond that day when he was thrown across a gym floor naked in front of his entire class. When Central Intelligence gets unnecessarily serious, take one glance at an almost alarmingly elated Johnson in his unicorn T-shirt and fanny pack, and all is right. Failing to pick up social cues with his overly enthusiastic, occasionally shy demeanor works well against Hart’s shriek-heavy confusion. Inviting himself in to sleep over after their initial meet-up is only the beginning, as he continually ropes Hart’s character deeper “in” to the conspiracy, when all he wants to do is firmly get “out.”
As for the plot, it involves marriage therapy, murder, cover-ups, MacGuffins, and the true identity of the big bad (aka the Black Badger). It’s almost always nonsensical, constructed solely to put Hart in a bewildered, exhausted state and Johnson there as the straight man for him to bounce off, which would be all well and good if the storyline wasn’t so dull. It’s perhaps a testament to Hart and Johnson’s affability that whenever we turn to anything strictly involving the government manhunt, headed up by Amy Ryan‘s Agent Pamela Harris, the film stops dead in its tracks, particularly in the last third. The string of cameos also seem to rest solely on the surprise of a recognizable face rather than resulting in any effective comedic or dramatic effect. (There is one exception, with a certain actor playing up his greatest strengths in the most hysterically cruel way.)
On a technical level, director and co-writer Rawson Marshall Thurber captures the action like one would expect in this post-Bourne era, mistaking cutting on impact as viscerally exciting. There’s also the larger problem of what seems to be New Line Cinema’s flavorless house style (seen in last year’s Vacation and Thurber’s previous feature We’re the Millers, both shot by Barry Peterson). Brightly lit with as large a depth of field as possible, there’s no texture or variety to any sequence, taking suspense out of the action and any semblance of weight out of the drama.
While it fails to deliver convincing action and its comedy feels watered down, Central Intelligence does get the “buddy” aspect correct. Doing their best with a script (also by Ike Barinholtz and David Stasser) that feels all-too-safe, Johnson and Hart manage to prove that a movie can glide by just enough on sheer charisma alone.
Central Intelligence opens on Friday, June 17.
After being ridiculed by everyone — and to be clear, everyone — in his high school class except Calvin Joyner (Hart), Robbie Weirdicht (Johnson) has buried the pain deep inside. Twenty years later, he now goes by Bob Stone, transforming himself into a ridiculously ripped, deadly CIA agent while Joyner, once a beloved high school stand-out, has a dead-end accounting job and believes he leads as lame a life as possible. With their class reunion coming up, he accepts a Facebook friend request from the mysterious Mr. Stone, leading to a meet-up for dinner, quickly interrupted by all-out mayhem as a government manhunt ensues.
Rather than playing his usual action archetype, Johnson aims something for something else here and impressively pulls it off. Stigmatized as a child with no friends, after years of burrowing this trauma, his social awareness is a few steps off. Leading a lonely life, relying on pop culture references such as Sixteen Candles, Road House, and Pitch Black as his foundation, Johnson plays things goofily aloof with an underlying sadness as if he never matured beyond that day when he was thrown across a gym floor naked in front of his entire class. When Central Intelligence gets unnecessarily serious, take one glance at an almost alarmingly elated Johnson in his unicorn T-shirt and fanny pack, and all is right. Failing to pick up social cues with his overly enthusiastic, occasionally shy demeanor works well against Hart’s shriek-heavy confusion. Inviting himself in to sleep over after their initial meet-up is only the beginning, as he continually ropes Hart’s character deeper “in” to the conspiracy, when all he wants to do is firmly get “out.”
As for the plot, it involves marriage therapy, murder, cover-ups, MacGuffins, and the true identity of the big bad (aka the Black Badger). It’s almost always nonsensical, constructed solely to put Hart in a bewildered, exhausted state and Johnson there as the straight man for him to bounce off, which would be all well and good if the storyline wasn’t so dull. It’s perhaps a testament to Hart and Johnson’s affability that whenever we turn to anything strictly involving the government manhunt, headed up by Amy Ryan‘s Agent Pamela Harris, the film stops dead in its tracks, particularly in the last third. The string of cameos also seem to rest solely on the surprise of a recognizable face rather than resulting in any effective comedic or dramatic effect. (There is one exception, with a certain actor playing up his greatest strengths in the most hysterically cruel way.)
On a technical level, director and co-writer Rawson Marshall Thurber captures the action like one would expect in this post-Bourne era, mistaking cutting on impact as viscerally exciting. There’s also the larger problem of what seems to be New Line Cinema’s flavorless house style (seen in last year’s Vacation and Thurber’s previous feature We’re the Millers, both shot by Barry Peterson). Brightly lit with as large a depth of field as possible, there’s no texture or variety to any sequence, taking suspense out of the action and any semblance of weight out of the drama.
While it fails to deliver convincing action and its comedy feels watered down, Central Intelligence does get the “buddy” aspect correct. Doing their best with a script (also by Ike Barinholtz and David Stasser) that feels all-too-safe, Johnson and Hart manage to prove that a movie can glide by just enough on sheer charisma alone.
Central Intelligence opens on Friday, June 17.
- 6/16/2016
- by Jordan Raup
- The Film Stage
More than 8,000 Fort Wayne area residents have voted in an online poll to name their new city-county building the “Harry Baals Government Center,” after well-liked Indiana mayor Harry W. Baals. For some reason, though, the county isn’t approving the name, so for the foreseeable future, there will be no Harry Baals Government Center named after former mayor Harry Baals. This local news team is on the scene, presenting the facts and really making sure to say Harry Baals a bunch of times: What a slight to the memory of Harry Baals. I guess they’ll just have to go to the next-highest vote getter and name it the “Big Johnson Memorial Center”: (via @wyshynski)...
- 2/10/2011
- by Dan Hopper
- BestWeekEver
Bone: Tall Tales
By Jeff Smith with Tom Sniegoski
128 pages, Scholastic Graphix, $10.99 (paperback), $22.99 (hardcover)
Scholastic’s Graphix imprint is wisely repackaging all the Bone material, turning it into a uniform library for the young adult readers who can’t get enough of the denizens of Boneville. The latest such entry is Tall Tales, which is the color edition of 2000’s Stupid, Stupid Rat-Tails: The Adventures of Big Johnson Bone, Frontier Hero, which in turn collected a 1999 miniseries. The key differences are that “RIblet” is not included here while a story produced for the late, lamented Disney Adventures magazine is added along with some new material.
Additionally, the versatile Tom Sniegoski penned three of the four tales collected here with Smith handling the honors for the framing sequence and the first story. Essentially, Smiley and Bartleby take Ring, Bingo and Todd camping and tell stories around the campfire. So, the...
By Jeff Smith with Tom Sniegoski
128 pages, Scholastic Graphix, $10.99 (paperback), $22.99 (hardcover)
Scholastic’s Graphix imprint is wisely repackaging all the Bone material, turning it into a uniform library for the young adult readers who can’t get enough of the denizens of Boneville. The latest such entry is Tall Tales, which is the color edition of 2000’s Stupid, Stupid Rat-Tails: The Adventures of Big Johnson Bone, Frontier Hero, which in turn collected a 1999 miniseries. The key differences are that “RIblet” is not included here while a story produced for the late, lamented Disney Adventures magazine is added along with some new material.
Additionally, the versatile Tom Sniegoski penned three of the four tales collected here with Smith handling the honors for the framing sequence and the first story. Essentially, Smiley and Bartleby take Ring, Bingo and Todd camping and tell stories around the campfire. So, the...
- 9/4/2010
- by Robert Greenberger
- Comicmix.com
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