Bruce Willis – This Had Oscar Buzz

After the smash box office success and surprise Oscar nominations of The Sixth Sense, M. Night Shyamalan delivered a follow-up in short order. With a mysterious trailer, Unbreakable reunited Shyamalan with Bruce Willis for another genre exercise, this time involving a man who survives a train crash without any injuries. Samuel L. Jackson co-headlines as a frail man with ideas about what makes Willis’ character so special, and the film help cement Shyamalan’s reputation with audiences as a twist guy. But after the widespread affection for The Sixth Sense, this film proved to be something too dark and obscure for audiences.

This episode, we talk about Shyamalan’s work and this film’s slightly ahead-of-the-curve look at comic book culture. We also talk about the film’s marketing, Willis and Jackson’s underrated performances, and Willis’ star persona in the 1990s.

Topics also include the Unbreakable sequels, James Newton Howard’s score, and 2000 Original Screenplay.

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We’ve got our oldest movie yet this week and it’s a doozy! In 1990, auteur Brian DePalma gave us a prestige adaptation of the most lauded novel of the 80s and faceplanted to notorious depths. This week, we’re talking about a bomb of era-defining proportions – brace yourself for The Bonfire of the Vanities!

Headlined by three of the biggest names of 1988 – Tom Hanks, Melanie Griffith, and Bruce Willis – DePalma’s adaptation was riding on major buzz beyond even Oscar’s consideration. The film aims to satirize class inequity and hypocrisy among Wall Street’s Manhattan, but was critically drubbed for its atonal swings and those misbegotten casting choices. As detailed in Julie Salamon’s behind-the-scenes book “The Devil’s Candy”, Bonfire was also a very troubled production plagued with producer exits, star egos, and an intense level of scrutiny.

This episode, we discuss this legendary flop and the trajectories of both director Brian DePalma and star Melanie Griffith. Topics also include “with, and” starring screen credits, the 1990 Oscar nominees, and teen heartthrob Devon Sawa.

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Tag: Bruce Willis

314 – Unbreakable

086 – The Bonfire of the Vanities