Die Hard On A Blank

It’s Die Hard in Boston! This week on the show, Phil and Liam break out their ropiest accents to discuss the 1994 action-thriller BLOWN AWAY, starring Jeff Bridges and Tommy Lee Jones. “It’s Die Haaad in Boston! What - you think you better than me or somethin’?”Jimmy Dove (Jeff Bridges), a veteran member of the Boston bomb squad, is planning to retire and settle down with his partner Kate (Suzy Am...

It’s Die Hard on a bus! For the show’s 20th episode, Phil and Liam are joined by special guest Kris Tapley - film journalist for Variety, host of the 50 MPH podcast and the world’s foremost expert on this week’s film: SPEED!When hotshot LA SWAT cop Jack Traven (Keanu Reeves) incurs the wrath of mad bomber Howard Payne (Dennis Hopper), Payne responds by rigging a city bus with a unique explosive de...

It’s Die Hard in a future shock satire! For this week’s episode, Phil and Liam are joined by special guest Nick De Semlyen, editor of Empire magazine and author of the excellent book THE LAST ACTION HEROES. Together they unfreeze DEMOLITION MAN – a deceptively sophisticated sci-fi movie that explores, deconstructs and satirizes action movie archetypes. In a dystopian LA, renegade cop John Spartan...

Liam and Phil went out to the coast to to have a few laughs this week, so they decided to share an underheard early gem from the podcast: the ORIGINS OF DIE HARD episode. Thanks to everyone who has listened, shared, or told us they like the show. Special thanks to our amazing guests so far. We'll be back in two weeks with DEMOLITION MAN.It's Rambo in a Towering Inferno! In part two of this...

It’s Die Hard in a serial killer thriller! Or is it Die Hard in a murder mystery? Or Die Hard in a family drama? Or Die Hard in the great American play?! To make sense of all this, Phil and Liam are joined by special guest Sean Fennessey, the host of The Big Picture and a regular guest on The Rewatchables.  The plot of Striking Distance speaks to its surprising level of complexity. After he testif...

It’s Die Hard in New Orleans! For this very special episode, Phil is joined by the very person whom he had previously declared to be his “dream guest”: Kyle Brandt! The host of Good Morning Football on the NFL Network and an avowed action movie super-fan! Together, these two enthusiastic action aficionados discuss their feelings about HARD TARGET, on the cusp of its 30th anniversary. Liam was on p...

It’s Die Hard on the run! Phil and Liam are joined by special guests Dominick Nero and Adam Volerich (hosts of the Eye of the Duck film podcast) for an unyielding “hard-target search” of THE FUGITIVE, a hugely influential movie that contemporized the classic ‘chase thriller’ and paved the way for a series of subsequent TV-to-film adaptations, as well as its own spate of imitators (and a direct seq...

It’s Die Hard in a meta fantasy satire! Phil and Liam enter the weird and not-so-wonderful world of LAST ACTION HERO, the deconstructionist meta fantasy satire (and infamous box office flop) that has gained a growing cult following in the 30 years since its original release. Last Action Hero wasn’t just a movie, it was a pop-culture juggernaut, but ultimately it failed to deliver on the promise of...

It’s Die Hard on a mountain! Hang on tight as Phil and Liam grapple with CLIFFHANGER (1993), aided by a very special guest: Jamelle Bouie, columnist for the New York Times Opinion section and the host of the Unclear and Present Danger podcast. After the botched mid-air heist of a US treasury plane results in a violent plane crash, mountain rescue worker Gabe Walker is coerced into helping the ruth...

It’s Die Hard on a plane (and a carnival)!Take your seats and buckle up as this week Phil and Liam are tackling PASSENGER 57 (1992) with the help of special guest Ronald Young, Jr, a regular contributor to NPR’s Pop Culture Happy Hour and the host of his own movie podcast Leaving The Theater, as well as the forthcoming Weight For It. Wesley Snipes stars as John Cutter, a former Secret Service agen...

It's DIE HARD on a battleship! Phil and Liam take a deep dive into choppy waters as they analyze UNDER SIEGE (1992), one of the earliest (and best) action films to directly replicate the classic DIE HARD formula. In this instance, Steven Seagal stars as Casey Ryback, a former Navy SEAL turned ship’s cook, who springs into action when the USS Missouri is seized by traitorous terrorists looking...

It’s Die Hard in a political thriller! This time Phil and Liam dig into the IRA-themed action movie PATRIOT GAMES (1992), the Jack Ryan sequel that Die Hard director John McTiernan was originally supposed to make with Alec Baldwin in the lead role. But fate – and Harrison Ford – had other ideas! While this expansive, globe-trotting political thriller may not bare much resemblance to Die Hard on fa...

It’s DIE HARD in a hospital! This time, Phil and Liam team up to investigate HARD BOILED (1992), John Woo’s operatic action extravaganza starring legendary actors Chow Yun-fat and Tony Leung, as two very different Hong Kong cops who join forces to take down a ruthless arms dealer. It’s a film that’s often compared to DIE HARD…but does it actually surpass it? Is this actually the greatest action fi...

It’s DIE HARD in an L.A. Noir! The mismatched duo of Phil and Liam begin a serpentine investigation into THE LAST BOY SCOUT (1991), the ultraviolent private eye picture that combined the talents of multiple action movie icons: star Bruce Willis, director Tony Scott, producer Joel Silver and screenwriter Shane Black. As well as being a buddy movie, this brutal, bruising film also fits into the gran...

It's the DIE HARD ECU!This time Phil and Liam wrestle with RICOCHET (1991), Russell Mulcahy’s wild revenge thriller starring Denzel Washington as Nick Styles, a cop turned lawyer who incurs the wrath of John Lithgow’s monstrous criminal Earl Talbot Blake. Not only is this Joel Silver production positively overflowing with ‘Die Hard DNA’, it also takes place in the same extended cinematic unive...

It’s DIE HARD in a prep school! This time Liam and Phil play with TOY SOLDIERS (1991), the fondly remembered teen action-adventure movie starring Sean Astin and Wil Wheaton as unruly prep school students who fight back against marauding Colombian terrorists. This is a hugely important movie historically, especially in the context of this podcast, as it was the very first ‘Die Hard on a Blank’ film...

It’s DIE HARD on a train! This time Phil and Liam discuss NARROW MARGIN (1990), Peter Hyams’ highly underrated action-thriller remake starring Gene Hackman and Anne Archer. They talk about the differences and similarities to the original 1952 film noir, the Hitchcockian echoes, and the myriad of subtle Die Hard influences upon this highly suspenseful picture, that earns its place among a grand tra...

It’s DIE HARD in an airport! Phil and Liam break down the first official DIE HARD sequel, the smash-hit blockbuster DIE HARD 2: DIE HARDER (1990). They discuss the evolution of John McClane’s character, the plethora of scary neo-con villains, the film’s complex geo-political influences, the iconic action sequences, the literary source material, the discarded subplots, and the film’s meta qualities...

It’s DIE HARD on a submarine! This week, underwater enthusiasts Liam and Phil analyze THE HUNT OF RED OCTOBER (1990), the film that (original DIE HARD director) John McTiernan made at the expense of directing DIE HARD 2. They discuss the movie’s political context, its huge cultural significance in kicking off the popular Jack Ryan franchise, and how as one of the first ‘techno-thrillers’, it eleva...

It’s DIE HARD in a Bond movie! In this third episode, Phil and Liam don their tuxedos (but keep their mullets from the ROAD HOUSE episode) to discuss LICENCE TO KILL (1989), the controversial and divisive James Bond movie that marked Timothy Dalton’s final appearance as the legendary secret agent. While placing the film in a wider context as part of the Bond canon, Phil and Liam discuss their pers...

It’s DIE HARD in a bar! (sort of).In this second episode, Phil and Liam analyze DIE HARD’s influence on ROAD HOUSE (1989), the bar-brawling cult classic starring Patrick Swayze as a philosophical uberbouncer hired to clean up the world’s most depraved drinking establishment. It’s a movie filled with a surprising amount of ‘DIE HARD DNA’, giving Phil and Liam plenty to discuss. Amongst other things...

In part two of this inaugural episode, Phil and Liam discuss ‘The Anatomy of an Action Movie’, using DIE HARD as an example to analyze the essential components that make an action movie successful (or not). They also discuss DIE HARD’s diffuse origins and influences throughout cinema and literature, with a particular focus on Roderick Thorp’s book ‘Nothing Lasts Forever’ - the 1978 novel upon whic...

Welcome to the party, pals! This is DIE HARD ON A [BLANK] – the podcast that explores the influence of DIE HARD on action cinema…one action movie at a time! In part one of this special inaugural episode, we meet our two hosts – screenwriter Philip Gawthorne and podcast impresario Liam Billingham. The guys introduce themselves and explain their personal connections to, and mutual fascination with,...

Welcome to the party pals! This is DIE HARD ON A BLANK, a new podcast from Sugar23 that explores the influence of Die Hard on action cinema. In each episode, screenwriter Philip Gawthorne and film podcaster Liam Billingham will talk about one major action movie that was released after DIE HARD - the official sequels, the various imitators, all the way up to recent releases like VIOLENT NIGHT. They...