Critics Dig “Die Hard” & Kevin!

June 28th @ 8:12 am | No Comments » | Scooped by Brad & Chris, E.Christopher, Maleah Dust, Eric C. Bram

  • The jury’s in, folks, and “Live Free or Die Hard” is a HUGE winner with critics — Many, many positive comments about Kevin’s appearance in the film too, including a nice comment in this very positive CNN/AP review :
“Filmmaker Kevin Smith adds an amusing bit part as a distrustful computer nerd holed up in a “command center” in his mom’s basement.”

But hey, there’s SO MUCH more than that — Kevin’s recent blog post collects heaps of links and text from all the e-love that’s been spreading for both the film and his performance. Kevin says:

I loved this flick. Naturally, I’m biased because I’m in it. But as of this writing, it’s got a 78% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes, so apparently, I’m not alone.

As I did earlier this year with “Catch and Release”, I’ve collected all the positive pull quotes regarding my little role (played with a very big roll, barely contained under my three costume shirts).

Of course, there were a handful of naysayers, the best of which was Ty Burr in the Boston Globe who wrote “They bring on Kevin Smith, the “Clerks” director and, increasingly, an indie-cred muppet for studio movies�” Any outrage I might’ve mustered evaporated after reading “indie-cred muppet”; unfair or not, that shit’s funny.

But in the reviews that mentioned me (and not all of them do, as I’m not exactly a prominent presence in the flick), the lion’s-share were thumbs-up. And while I won’t be quitting my day job to concentrate on acting any time soon, it was nice to know I didn’t just not sink the picture, I actually helped in some small way (nobody wants to be the guy that fucks up “Die Hard”). Thanks, all, for the kind words.

Kevin goes on to list the undeniable evidence with the review clips, all of which you can see over at the Boring-Ass Life blog.

Oh, and on a final note, this Filmstew piece reveals just how important the “Warlock scene” is to the film:

“We had to shoot alternate takes of almost every scene, in case the scene that we hadn’t shot yet that was going to be scheduled a month from now turned out either to be in the film or not in the film.” “There was a scene with Kevin Smith called “The Warlock scene,” because that’s the name of his character,” the actor continues. “Anything we didn’t know was going to be in the film [plot wise], we just said, ‘Put it in the Warlock scene.’ By the time we got to Kevin Smith, it was a nine-page scene. Fortunately, we had shot enough of the film by then to know what we needed from that scene.” The appearance of Kevin Smith on screen, about two-thirds of the way through Live Free or Die Hard, elicited a chorus of cheers from last night’s L.A. press screening audience. Smith wound up helping Wiseman and Willis write a lot of his big scene, which starts with a gruff greeting from his character Freddy Kaludis’ mom.

Cheers from the crowd at the press screening? YEAH!

So have we convinced you yet? Check out “Live Free or Die Hard”. Starring Kevin Smith…Oh, and Bruce Willis too — In theaters everywhere NOW!

No Comments Yet...

Scroll down and be the first!

Got Something To Say?

You must be logged in to post a comment.