No, wait, it's "Where did you learn to negotiate like that?" Sorry. And no, I don't own it, I just watch it every time it shows up on TV.

Heh. I am the anti-ita. 12 Monkeys hit me so hard, with the crazy and the sacrifice and the sorrow, that when it was over I sat in the theater SOBBING for a good eight minutes. Not just tears, but big honking gasping sobs with a wet red face spurting liquid out of every orifice but the ears.

12 Monkeys, Mortal Thoughts, Die Hard, Pulp Fiction, In Country, Nobody's Fool, and weird shit like The Fifth Element and challenging, thoughtful failed messes like Billy Bathgate and Breakfast of Champions.

Bruce Willis can do the smirky and the smug, and it's an easy fallback for him, but he makes a lot of choices that force him outside that comfort zone and IMO he succeeds a lot more often than not. And apparently he works deliberately at it; you never hear stories from directors about him the way you do about Jim Carrey, who'll pick a challenging, layered role and then utterly sabotages it with incessant mugging unless the director manages to outwit or exhaust him into a decent performance.

he's really much better as a character actor than he is as a leading man

Agree with this. I think, actually, that people would appreciate him more if he didn't insist on going back for the paycheck blow-em-ups so often. I mean, I think of him first as a comedian, but that's because I was 10 years old when Moonlighting was on. Most people think of him as Grim Face Action Man, which, dull.

Hudson Hawk.

Yeah, I'd have to say I like Bruce Willis more often than not. I even like some of his lesser action items (STRIKING DISTANCE, LAST BOY SCOUT) and even some of the seriously reviled ones (like COLOR OF NIGHT, but only the longer version they showed on cable because it actually makes sense even if it's still WAY over the top).

I even like some of his lesser action items (STRIKING DISTANCE, LAST ACTION HERO)

You mean The Last Boy Scout, which I liked too.

You mean The Last Boy Scout, which I liked too.

Yes, my god. I'm even going back and changing that. shudder

Frank likes Last Action Hero -- pass it on.

Last Action Hero though with Ahnold, is unfairly misjudged, I think. It's a nifty look at action movie tropes and the real world.

I liked Last Action Hero too, though. I don't know why, but the memory of watching it in a San Francisco theater while eating a Burger King chicken sandwich still sticks with me.

Connie my sistah!