TV/Movies Megathread

[The Larch]

 

Bruce Willis "Stepping Away" From Acting Career After Aphasia Diagnosis


Bruce Willis is "stepping away" from his acting career after being diagnosed with aphasia, which leads to the loss of ability to understand or express speech, his family said in a statement posted to social media.

"To Bruce's amazing supporters, as a family we wanted to share that our beloved Bruce has been experiencing some health issues and has recently been diagnosed with aphasia, which is impacting his cognitive abilities," read the statement. "As a result of this and with much consideration, Bruce is stepping away from the career that has meant so much to him."

The 67-year-old film star is best known for playing John McClane in the iconic Die Hard franchise. The original 1988 film made Willis a film and action star after he was mainly known as a comedic TV actor, specifically in the series Moonlighting.

"This is a really challenging time for our family and we are so appreciative of your continued love, compassion and support. We are moving through this as a strong family unit, and wanted to bring his fans in because we know how much he means to you, as you do to him. As Bruce always says, 'Live it up' and together we plan to do just that. Love, Emma, Demi, Rumer, Scout, Tallulah, Mabel, & Evelyn."

Willis was immediately trending on social media as the news broke, as fans were sharing their disbelief and sadness over the development.

[HVC]

 

Guess that explains why he was doing so many bad movies lately, building up a nest egg.

[Malthus]

Watching "The Power of the Dog" on Netflix - it's a sort of reverse of *Brokeback Mountain*. Not sure how I would feel about this movie if I were gay - does it rely too much on stereotypes and tropes about homosexuality, or is it a deconstruction of them?

Still, finding the cat and mouse game between the ostensibly bullying predator and the ostensibly "sissy victim" pretty compelling. The acting and cinematography are great as well.

One interesting bit of foreshadowing I noticed - when the two characters apparently bond over being able to see the shape of the dog in the side of the mountain - I guess indicating that, in the world of the movie, they were both alike in their potential to do harm. I knew from that scene on the younger fellow wasn't as harmless as he appeared.

[garbon]

I'm planning to skip it as I feel like I've evolved past needing to put up with gay trauma in film.

[Malthus]

I'm planning to skip it as I feel like I've evolved past needing to put up with gay trauma in film.

Heh it's a pretty dark movie. Nothing "gay", in the sense of lighthearted and happy, happens.

Apparently the novel on which it was based was written by a closeted gay man, but one could be excused for finding it pretty unpleasant to watch from the perspective of gay men - the villain is a closeted gay man, and he is thoroughly unpleasant, without any redeeming features whatsoever. 

[merithyn]

I saw The Eagle last night. I really liked it! Though it is, at the end of things, just a buddy movie with swords.

[merithyn]

Watching "The Power of the Dog" on Netflix - it's a sort of reverse of *Brokeback Mountain*. Not sure how I would feel about this movie if I were gay - does it rely too much on stereotypes and tropes about homosexuality, or is it a deconstruction of them?

Still, finding the cat and mouse game between the ostensibly bullying predator and the ostensibly "sissy victim" pretty compelling. The acting and cinematography are great as well.

One interesting bit of foreshadowing I noticed - when the two characters apparently bond over being able to see the shape of the dog in the side of the mountain - I guess indicating that, in the world of the movie, they were both alike in their potential to do harm. I knew from that scene on the younger fellow wasn't as harmless as he appeared.

This sounds right in keeping with my "don't watch" type of movies. Is it basically supposed to be cerebral horror?

[Malthus]

This sounds right in keeping with my "don't watch" type of movies. Is it basically supposed to be cerebral horror?

I thought that it was going to be a Western - but it is more like a psychological drama.

I can't do spoiler tags, but below are major spoilers.

...

The basic plot is this: two brothers are bachelors and partners in a very wealthy cattle ranch business in the 1920s. One of the brothers meets a widow with a son in his 20s, and falls for her. They get married - much to the disgust of the other brother.

The other brother is a jerk and a bully, who used to lord it over everyone, and isn't happy his brother has another relationship now. He states, based on no evidence, that the woman is just a cheap gold-digger and sets out to make her life hell in various ways - putting her down all the time. She turns to drink.

Her son, who is a very effeminate looking fellow, is away at medical school. He comes home to find this unpleasant situation. At first, the bully tries shaming the son, calling him a sissy. But soon, it seems the bully becomes interested in him.

The bully brother, as it turns out, is a closeted gay - he fetishizes all that western cattle stuff. The son finds out about this. The two strike up a relationship of sorts, much to the mother's horror. The bully, it is pretty clear, has a sexual interest in the son, wants to "mentor" him in the ways of cattle-ranching and all that Wild West cowboy stuff (and presumably have sex with him). It isn't clear whether the Bully is really interested in the son, or only wants him in order to further torment his mother (maybe both). He teaches the son to ride and promises to make him a rawhide rope. The mother gets more upset.

As it turns out, the son was consciously leading the bully on. He plans to murder the bully, to protect his mother from the bully's abuse. He does this very cleverly, by getting the bully to accept rawhide infected with anthrax for making the fetish-rope the bully was making for him as a gift. The son knows about anthrax from his medical studies. The bully gets anthrax and dies. After the funeral, the son sees his mother is now happy with her husband, and reads from the psalms "Deliver my soul from the sword, my darling from the power of the dog" - and smiles.

Edit: I guess one of the issues the movie raises is who the bad guy is. The bully brother is portrayed as a complete asshole - but the son murders him for it. Are they both bad, or is the son justified? As noted above, one bit of foreshadowing is that the son and the bully both bond over being able to see the shadow form of a dog in the hillside - indicating maybe they have something in common.

[celedhring]

The other day I just watched Red Letter Media reviewing/mocking Willis' last batch of terrible movies, I feel kinda bad about it now. 

[Josquius]

I've been watching Y the Last Man.
It's pretty good.
Bizzare after all the billboard advertising and clearly spending so much on those first few episodes - not necessary as the show goes on - that Disney would cancel it so quick.
Not quite Firefly nor even Cowboy Bebop level dodgy cancellation yet

Also we've watched series 1 of Ted Lasso. It's very good. My partner was not keen at first given the football thing but I explained, hopefully, that it's about football in the way the office is about paper. There is a bit more actual football in it but it works anyway.
Mandatory lost points for pushing fake-Richmond as THE Richmond

[The Larch]

Apparently Bruce Willis' aphasia-related decline was already known in some of the productions he worked at recently.

Concerns about Bruce Willis' declining cognitive state swirled around sets in recent years

Just days before Bruce Willis was scheduled to turn up on the set of one of his latest action films, the director of the project sent out an urgent request: Make the movie star's part smaller.

"It looks like we need to knock down Bruce's page count by about 5 pages," Mike Burns, the director of "Out of Death," wrote in a June 2020 email to the film's screenwriter. "We also need to abbreviate his dialogue a bit so that there are no monologues, etc."

Burns did not outline one of the reasons why Willis' lines needed to be kept "short and sweet." But on Wednesday, the public learned what he and many other filmmakers have privately been concerned about for years: The 67-year-old's family said he will retire from acting because he has aphasia. The cognitive disorder affects a person's ability to communicate and often develops in individuals who have suffered strokes.
(...)
According to those who have worked with the elder Willis on his recent films, the actor has been exhibiting signs of decline in recent years. In interviews with The Times this month, nearly two dozen people who were on set with the actor expressed concern about Willis' well-being.

These individuals questioned whether the actor was fully aware of his surroundings on set, where he was often paid $2 million for two days of work, according to documents viewed by The Times. Filmmakers described heart-wrenching scenes as the beloved "Pulp Fiction" star grappled with his loss of mental acuity and an inability to remember his dialogue. An actor who traveled with Willis would feed the star his lines through an earpiece, known in the industry as an "earwig," according to several sources. Most action scenes, particularly those that involved choreographed gunfire, were filmed using a body double as a substitute for Willis.

[celedhring]

Apparently Bruce Willis' aphasia-related decline were already known in some of the productions he worked at recently.

Concerns about Bruce Willis' declining cognitive state swirled around sets in recent years

Just days before Bruce Willis was scheduled to turn up on the set of one of his latest action films, the director of the project sent out an urgent request: Make the movie star's part smaller.

"It looks like we need to knock down Bruce's page count by about 5 pages," Mike Burns, the director of "Out of Death," wrote in a June 2020 email to the film's screenwriter. "We also need to abbreviate his dialogue a bit so that there are no monologues, etc."

Burns did not outline one of the reasons why Willis' lines needed to be kept "short and sweet." But on Wednesday, the public learned what he and many other filmmakers have privately been concerned about for years: The 67-year-old's family said he will retire from acting because he has aphasia. The cognitive disorder affects a person's ability to communicate and often develops in individuals who have suffered strokes.
(...)
According to those who have worked with the elder Willis on his recent films, the actor has been exhibiting signs of decline in recent years. In interviews with The Times this month, nearly two dozen people who were on set with the actor expressed concern about Willis' well-being.

These individuals questioned whether the actor was fully aware of his surroundings on set, where he was often paid $2 million for two days of work, according to documents viewed by The Times. Filmmakers described heart-wrenching scenes as the beloved "Pulp Fiction" star grappled with his loss of mental acuity and an inability to remember his dialogue. An actor who traveled with Willis would feed the star his lines through an earpiece, known in the industry as an "earwig," according to several sources. Most action scenes, particularly those that involved choreographed gunfire, were filmed using a body double as a substitute for Willis.

Yeah, that's what I mean when I spoke about watching that Red Letter Media clip and feeling retrospectively bad about it. The Red Letter Media people were laughing at the terribleness of his acting, obvious overuse of body doubles to hide the fact he didn't spend much time on set, pointing the fact he was being fed his lines... Now it turns out it was not out of laziness (which is what they assumed), but illness. They obviously didn't know he was ill.

[Syt]

Must be hell knowing how much you're struggling through your performance because of your condition and then the vultures swooping in to add insult to injury.

[Josquius]

I do remember reading a review of his latest film, it was pretty damning about how bored and uninterested he looks. Now we know.

[Syt]

Well, personally I do feel bad about laughing at the story I posted further up about him getting his own category in the Razzies:

https://languish.org/forums/index.php/topic,4507.msg1351026.html#msg1351026