Die Hard: The Musical

Have I mentioned that I'm a Die Hard fan? No? That's weird, well I am. And also actors making music. So when I caught wind of this, I had to share.

Our very own Special Agent Johnson has an album of Sinatra standards, just released this past fall. Robert Davi, whom you may know better from Maniac Cop 2 & 3, The Taking of Beverly Hills, The Goonies and/or Predator 2, is also apparently a student of the great American Songboook. I just happened to be cruising iTunes radio stations when I caught a bit of a program that was mentioning his album and had clips of interviews and a handful of tracks from his album. I was surprised, dude has pipes. Check out this great interview promo clip where he also discusses his first viewing of Die Hard with Arnold Schwarzenegger:

If you're interested, you can pick up his album, Davi Sings Sinatra: On the Road to Romance on Amazon.

Trivia: Davi's first film was with Sinatra, Contract on Cherry Street.

So this news got naturally got me thinking about Die Hard and Bruce Willis also released an album of blues songs back in the '80s, called The Return of Bruno. I'm not really sure who in his circle encouraged him to go forward with that particular project, but he followed it with 2 other albums in '89 and '99 respectively that I haven't heard. But one thing you might not know is that Bruno was accompanied by a kind of ridiculous HBO special of the same name. Now I mean, I'm a Bruce Willis fan, he's the only reason I would check out the new G.I. Joe movie, but his singing is just kind of average I guess. The special, however, totally sells it:

You can get the special on lovely lovely VHS for only $20 at Amazon!. I would put a download of the album/special on here, but now I'm all paranoid with the recent squashing of such activities. I'm sure with a little sleuthing you all can find them as well.

And possibly more familiar is Alan Rickman's (aka HANS GRUBER) singing role in Sweeney Todd, as Judge Turpin.

So all of this is to get to the point that I would like to propose, Die Hard: The Musical. How terrible/awesome would that be?! Actually, instead of all the endless stream of crime dramas premiering every year on network television, I wish someone would do a Die Hard show with a young McClane fresh on the force. That would be cool too. Actually anything more Die Hard. Die Hard. Yes.

If Album Covers Like This Really Existed...

More people would buy music.

You've Got Personality....

Michael Jackson's Ghosts (1997)

Man I don't know where I was when this came out; hopefully getting laid. But I had never heard of this before now, and only discovered it by accident on Amazon. I think MJ was trying to recapture some of his "Thriller" glory as his popularity waned in the late '90s and he started to really embody the whole Wacko Jacko name. But he spared no expense here, the video is directed by effects master Stan Winston and based on a story by Stephen King, MJ and Stan Winston. Pretty wild bunch eh? This apparently screened in some places with King's Thinner movie that same year, and then was subsequently released on video.

And dig this description from IMDB, I was laughing pretty hard:

"The story tells of a small town that is very much bothered by a very strange and weird man living in a visually haunted house. One day the mayor decides to go with a couple of people from his town to the weird man who's living up the hill, and tell him to leave. When they reach the mayor starts convincing him to leave his town, but the people with the mayor started liking Michael Jackson, and he started singing to them and scaring the mayor. Until in the end the mayor gets too scared and runs away, and the people come to know that Michael isn't too bad after all."

The more interesting thing is that Mike also plays the mayor and the final video shows the process to have him done up like a cranky old white man. Wikipedia says this is considered by Guiness to be the world's longest music video, and I guess. I always thought 8 Mile was.

Michael Jackson - Ghosts by Wakazai

This appears to be out of print on DVD. However, if you're feeling especially saucy you can buy the Ghosts VCD at amazon.com.Hurry, there are only 15 left!

Phoebe Cates - "Paradise"

Man, how cute is this video of Phoebe Cates singing the theme to "Paradise"? I had no clue she did any music, but then again nobody told me. I love how very 1982 this clip is.

She apparently made two other recordings, both from Private School, but I'm only posting the poppy one below, yeah!