Tagged: Bruce Willis
Budget Fall Flannel for 2020
After I shared some of my favorite budget-friendly movie and TV-inspired summer shirts this year, I also received some interest in a similar post for the autumn so my thoughts immediately went to rounding up some fall-friendly flannel shirts, jackets, and shackets based on my favorite types of movies to watch around this time of year.
My taste in fall movies runs from the rough to the refined. Having grown up watching The Dukes of Hazzard, I always had a soft spot for the low-budget “hick flicks” (and I use the term endearingly) often rolled out during the ’70s by groups like American International Pictures or New World Pictures. The latter distributed Moonshine County Express, one of many movies I saw for the first time while under quarantine this year, and a clear bridge between Burt Reynolds’ early fare like White Lightning and the more formulaic world of the Duke boys in Hazzard County.
Of course, it also wouldn’t be fall without the melodramatic sophistication of Douglas Sirk or his romantic heroes with a taste for flannel as modeled by Rock Hudson in All That Heaven Allows or by his spiritual successor Dennis Haysbert in the autumnal drama Far From Heaven, Todd Haynes’ 2002 ode to Sirk.
Finally, the holidays means we’re in Die Hard season with both the 1988 original film and its 1990 sequel each set during an action-packed Christmas Eve. Bruce Willis’ cynical hero may be tragically underdressed for his adventure in Nakatomi Tower, but he makes up for it two years later by keeping his shirt and shoes while battling baddies in the snow.
Please feel free to add your own observations or flannel favorites in the comments! Continue reading
Butch Coolidge in Pulp Fiction
Bruce Willis as Butch Coolidge in Pulp Fiction (1994)
Vitals
Bruce Willis as Butch Coolidge, tough, taciturn boxer
Los Angeles, Summer 1992
Film: Pulp Fiction
Release Date: October 14, 1994
Director: Quentin Tarantino
Costume Designer: Betsy Heimann
WARNING! Spoilers ahead!
Background
There have been several requests to see Butch Coolidge’s bomber jacket ensemble from Pulp Fiction get a proper BAMF Style analysis, so what better occasion would there be than Bruce Willis’ birthday? Happy 62nd, Bruce!
Like many classic fictional boxing stories before him, Butch Coolidge finds himself in a hard place between his pride and the mob…and ultimately decides that it’s the latter that should suffer. Continue reading
Die Hard with a Vengeance
Bruce Willis as NYPD Lt. John McClane in Die Hard with a Vengeance (1995).
I imagine there’s nothing more American to celebrate the 4th of July than the first Die Hard film set in summer with plenty of explosions, car crashes, and gunfights. Happy Independence Day!
(I’m aware that Live Free or Die Hard was actually set on the 4th of July, but that flick is when things started getting a little too ridiculous. McClane was no longer vulnerable, and I just wasn’t feeling it. I might post about it sometime, or I might not.)
Vitals
Bruce Willis as John McClane, increasingly cynical NYPD lieutenant
New York City, Late Summer 1995
Film: Die Hard with a Vengeance
Release Date: May 19, 1995
Director: John McTiernan
Costume Designer: Joseph G. Aulisi
Bruce Willis’ Costumer: Lori Stilson Continue reading
Die Hard 2
Bruce Willis as John McClane in Die Hard 2 (1990)
Merry Christmas from BAMF Style to you and yours!
Vitals
Bruce Willis as John McClane, LAPD detective lieutenant
Washington, D.C., Christmas 1990
Film: Die Hard 2: Die Harder
Release Date: July 4, 1990
Director: Renny Harlin
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Bruce Willis’ Key Costumer: Charles Mercuri
Background
One of the complaints about the Die Hard series is that there’s no way the same thing can keep happening to the one guy in the world who’s able to save it. Of course, these sort of complaints mostly started cropping up after the fourth installment in 2007 where John McClane literally saved the world. Prior to that, he’d saved about 30 lives in an office building, a few hundred in airplanes, and the population of New York City. Okay, so the scale kept getting bigger, but at least then he had a reason for being around. It’s even lampshaded in Die Hard 2 when McClane rants to himself:
Oh man, I can’t fucking believe this. Another basement, another elevator. How can the same shit happen to the same guy twice?
Bruce Willis in Last Man Standing
Bruce Willis as John Smith in Last Man Standing (1996).
Vitals
Bruce Willis as John Smith, mysterious mob gun-for-hire
Texas, Summer 1931
Film: Last Man Standing
Release Date: September 20, 1996
Director: Walter Hill
Costume Designer: Dan Moore
Willis’ Costumer: Lori Stilson
Background
Last Man Standing is one of many film adaptations of the classic “man-playing-two-corrupt-factions-against-the-other” story that originated in modern culture with Dashiell Hammett’s 1927 novel Red Harvest. The novel was loosely translated onto the screen for 1942’s The Glass Key and, soon, the story was soon standardized as a lone drifter of few words showing up in town, befriending a bartender, and taking on two criminal gangs. Continue reading
Die Hard
BAMF Style’s 5 Days of Christmas
One of my all-time favorite Christmas movies is Die Hard. If you’re traveling for the holidays this year, make sure you dress comfortably for the plane ride and for taking on a skyscraper full of European terrorists. Don’t worry about packing extra shoes.
Bruce Willis as Det. John McClane in Die Hard (1988)
Vitals
Bruce Willis as John McClane, NYPD detective
Los Angeles, Christmas 1987
Film: Die Hard
Release Date: July 15, 1988
Director: John McTiernan
Costume Designer: Marilyn Vance
Bruce Willis’ Key Costumer: Charles Mercuri
Background
John McClane was the direct American response to James Bond. Nothing against Bond; we’re obviously fans here, but McClane provided a brutal anti-hero that the ’80s needed. Before we delve into the attire, let’s briefly contrast these two. (This is all pre-Craig Bond being compared as Dan Craig certainly exemplifies a jaded physical toughness that McClane would be proud of.) Continue reading