Bruce Willis – Douglas Ernst Blog

A Good day to defend the Constitution: Bruce Willis sticks to his guns on the Second Amendment

February 6, 2013February 6, 2013 by Douglas Ernst 43 Comments

Bruce Willis A Good Day to Die Hard — Thank God John McClane (i.e., Bruce Willis) can be counted on to defend gun rights. Besides the politics, who wants to live in a world where ‘Die Hard’ movies are banned from using high capacity magazines?

‘A Good Die to Die Hard’ will be out on Valentine’s Day, which means that Bruce Willis will be promoting it heavily for the next two weeks. It also means that that, like Sylvester Stallone, he’s going to get a slew of questions pertaining about gun violence. Given his celebrity status, they’ll be teed up for him in such a way as to allow him to hit the ball in whatever direction he chooses — but they’ll still be asked.

The Associated Press was the first to get a hold of him, and he didn’t disappoint:

Bruce Willis says he’s against new gun control laws that could infringe on Second Amendment rights. The “Die Hard” star also dismisses any link between Hollywood shootouts and real-life gun violence.

“I think that you can’t start to pick apart anything out of the Bill of Rights without thinking that it’s all going to become undone,” Willis told The Associated Press in a recent interview while promoting his latest film, “A Good Day To Die Hard.” ”If you take one out or change one law, then why wouldn’t they take all your rights away from you?” …

“It’s a difficult thing and I really feel bad for those families,” he said. “I’m a father and it’s just a tragedy. But I don’t know how you legislate insanity. I don’t know what you do about it. I don’t even know how you begin to stop that.”

Compare Willis’ answer to Stallone’s recent musing on the Second Amendment while promoting ‘Bullet to the Head’:

“I know people get (upset) and go, ‘They’re going to take away the assault weapon.’ Who … needs an assault weapon? Like really, unless you’re carrying out an assault. … You can’t hunt with it. … Who’s going to attack your house, a (expletive) army?”

The 66-year-old actor, writer and director said he also hopes for an additional focus on mental health to prevent future mass shootings.

“It’s unbelievably horrible, what’s happened. I think the biggest problem, seriously, is not so much guns. It’s that every one of these people that have done these things in the past 30 years are friggin’ crazy.

Notice the difference? In actuality, both answers are only off by degrees — but Bruce Willis comes down on the side of individual freedom and liberty, and Stallone does not. Stallone seems to want to curry favor with the politically correct hob-knobbers in Hollywood, but Willis doesn’t care; he’s just Willis.

It is a rare instance indeed when a Hollywood star realizes that the public do-gooders will never be appeased. There will always be wrongs for them to right, and so they will never stop chipping away at the God-given natural rights of the individual. The same people who believe that they should be able to regulate how much sodium and fat and sugar you consume would not think twice about confiscating all guns if they thought they could get away with it (politically or with their lives). The people who believe they can force you to engage in commerce so that they could regulate that commerce will have no qualms coming for firearms as soon as history provides them with a window of time to act.

There are cameras on every block. There are domestic drones overhead. Your property rights (an essential pillar of any free society) have been eroded like a sandcastle wiped away by the rising tide (e.g., Kelo v New London). Your text messages and email messages are fair game. The federal government is so big and so bloated and so convoluted that every day you break federal regulations without even knowing it. We have a president — who demonized President George W. Bush — who has “Terror Tuesday” kill lists and rules for killing American citizens overseas.

In short: the stage is set for the United States to devolve very quickly one day into a bizarro United States of hopelessness and despair and tyranny. And one of the bulwarks against such a reality from ever taking place is the Second Amendment.

Bruce Willis might not be a constitutional expert, but his instincts are sound (which may explain why he’s been a star for so long). On this day, on this issue, he deserves a pat on the back for his willingness to stand up for gun rights. Bravo, Bruce. You just solidified my decision to see ‘A Good Day to Die Hard.’ I was on the fence after the previous installment (let us not go into detail about how ridiculous the fighter jet scene was, even by ‘Die Hard’ standards), but you’ve gained enough good will to get a few more bucks out of me. I’ll see you opening weekend.

Bruce Willis will also be starring in 'Red 2' in the near future, which will mean more dumb questions for him on gun control. Hopefully, he doesn't back down and continues to stand up for the rights enshrined in our Constitution. — Bruce Willis will also be starring in ‘Red 2’ in the near future, which will mean more dumb questions for him on gun control. Hopefully, he doesn’t back down and continues to stand up for the rights enshrined in our Constitution.

All balding men should pledge allegiance to Bruce Willis

August 27, 2012August 28, 2012 by Douglas Ernst 8 Comments

Bruce Willis Expendables 2 — Bruce Willis is a man who knows how to own his hair loss. Be like Bruce Willis, my dihydrotestosterone producing friends.

All good things must come to an end … like my hair. And so, since I am a conservative blogger I have no choice but to accept personal responsibility for my male pattern baldness. As much as I would like to blame my father, my grandfather, “the rich,” and a cruel, uncaring capitalistic system that surreptitiously gives men like me androgenic alopecia, I will do no such thing.

I first noticed my hair thinning up front. Soon, it wasn’t long before my crown began to crack under the pressure that baldness, the bastard, applies. The question became: Do I fight a slow war of attrition with my hair loss (one I was destined to lose), or would I employ a scorched-scalp strategy, whereas I could guarantee victory by embracing the landscape of a shaved head?

As a former soldier, the choice was simple: I would go back to the future, buy some shears, and see to it that my inner Bruce Willis was given his time to shine. The key to baldness is to revel in it and say to those stubborn genes, “You will not shake my confidence.” People can easily tell the difference between a man who sulks over finicky follicles that turned off too early, as if he was Samson done in by Delilah, and a man who likes what he sees and is empowered by it.

There are many men who pull off a shaved or bald head. Terry Crews, Dwayne “The Rock”Johnson, and Jason Statham are just a few. But to me, no one knows how to make it work better than Bruce Willis. The dude is the textbook case for cool. As so, as a newly-minted member of the Balding Men Club, I hereby announce my commitment to always strive for The Willis Ideal.

12 Monkeys is required viewing, Willis 101, for anyone who seeks to emulate Bruce’s mastery of baldness.

Expendables 2: Scholars confirm it’s what a soul of pure testosterone looks like

August 20, 2012August 20, 2012 by Douglas Ernst 4 Comments

The Expendable 2 opened in first place its opening weekend, to the tune of $28.5 million. It can’t be hard to put Stallone, Willis and Schwarzenegger into one flick and not have a good opening weekend, so in that sense no one should be impressed with the haul. Regardless, the film still needs to be reviewed. Many of those who follow this blog probably figure that I’ll have nothing bad to say about the movie, given that I’ve claimed Stallone knows the meaning of life. Not true. Expendables 2 is a solid summer popcorn movie, but I still plan on covering the good, the bad and the ugly.

First things first. Or should I say last? If you’ve ever wanted to see Stallone throw down against Jean-Claude Van Damme, consider your wish granted. In his mid-sixties, Sly is as ripped as ever. JCVD brings some serious triceps to the game, and the roundhouse kicks are as swift and powerful as ever. Men will watch The Expendables 2 for the next few decades for the climatic battle alone. Van Damme’s “Vilain” is so cheesy that he wears sunglasses in a mineshaft, but it doesn’t matter because all the audience cares about is a.) He represents pure evil and b.) He’s going to meet his maker in a death match with Stallone.

Watching The Expendables 2 is sort of like looking into a soul made of pure testosterone. There are explosions galore, muscles, fighting, guns, and creatively-staged deaths of evil men that give the audience license to smile and say, “Well, the bastards kind of deserved it.” There’s a scene that involves Vilain’s henchmen, and dare I say it — what happens to the last man standing may be worth the price of admission alone.

Where Stallone’s sequel goes wrong is with the overuse of cheesy one liners. I expect those in an 80’s throwback movie, but there are only so many times I can hear Schwarzenegger say “I’ll be back” or make some painful reference to the Terminator flicks before it becomes annoying. In some sense I wish they would have done away with them all together. The wry smiles the men share when they’re on screen together tells the audience everything they need to know. We’re already in on the joke … and at times the hammy dialogue distracts from an action movie that can stand out its own.

And finally — the ugly. Someone needs to punch Simon West in the kidneys for the blink-and-you-missed it shot of Stallone, Willis, and Schwarzenegger charging forward, guns blazing. How great would it have been to have a few classic stills of the three of them — running towards the camera in an extended shot — while emptying their magazines? Instead, we get a bunch of quick cuts, usually with a back turned away from the camera. Sometimes two of them have a moment together (and there is one with Arnold and Chuck Norris that is fabulous), but in general Mr. West dropped the ball when it came to getting three of the world’s best action heroes of all time into a few frames worthy of posters and t-shirts and memes for time eternal.

With that said, I think The Expendables 2 has enough juice in it for a third (and final) installment. Now get out there, do your manly duty, and see Expendables 2. And if you’re wondering why I didn’t cover things like, say, the “plot” … then you obviously haven’t see the original. I’m in a decent mood, so I’ll make it easy for you: Good guys need to kill bad guys.

Got it? Good. Now go see it, because Stallone and Co. aren’t getting any younger.

Moonrise Kingdom: The Young Person’s Guide to Great Movies

June 24, 2012June 24, 2012 by Douglas Ernst 1 Comment

To understand Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, the opening sequence tells us almost everything we need to know. A record player is turned on, and a narrator to ‘A Young Person’s Guide to the Orchestra’ says:

In order to show you how a big symphony orchestra is put together, Benjamin Britten has written a big piece of music, which is made up of smaller pieces that show you all the separate parts of the orchestra. These smaller pieces are called variations, which means different ways of playing the same tune. First of all he lets us hear the tune, or theme, which is a beautiful melody by the much older British composer, Henry Purcell. Here is Purcell’s theme played by the whole orchestra together. …

Moonrise Kingdom is a top tier orchestra, all playing the same tunes on very unique instruments. When all is said and done, Anderson walks away the master director. The finished product is one of the most beautiful, pitch-perfect pieces of film making I’ve seen in a long time.

The story revolves around two young adults, “Khaki Scout” Sam (Jared Gilman) and “troubled child” Suzy (Kara Hayward), who run away together, and the mad scramble to find them by the town’s authority figures. The time is 1965, and the location is a rugged little island. A storm is approaching, which adds to the urgency.

The adults in Moonrise Kingdom may be looking for the children, but it soon becomes apparent that — like Sam and Suzy — they too are runaways. They too are searching for love and forgiveness and redemption. And it’s the subtle way that Anderson slides all the layers together that makes Moonrise Kingdom so special. He even goes so far as to leave the most poignant part of the film for its final moments, a note that will leave many with tears (of happiness) in their eyes.

Frances McDormand and Bill Murray play Laura and Walt Bishop, respectively. They are parents of a family in tatters, for personal and professional reasons. Bruce Willis plays the town’s “sad” sheriff. Edward Norton plays Scout Master Ward. All of them have tales of loss and longing, law and order … and family. Along the way they will confront issues related to sex and violence, betrayal and forgiveness. It sounds graphic, but with Wes Anderson it isn’t. All of it is just beneath the surface of an orderly, almost picture-perfect world of literature, classical music and decorum.

Where Anderson truly shines is the way in which he captures that transition between youthful innocence and adulthood. Before 24 hour cable news, cell phones, and the internet fused with a debased culture in ways that now rob children of innocence well before their teenage years, the kind of communities Anderson dreams up, on many levels, existed.

Moonrise Kingdom doesn’t try to deny the worst parts of human nature — it is all most certainly there — but it captures a yearning for a time where mechanisms were in place to try harness those faults, so that our better parts could be trained and cultivated into something productive and beautiful.

Finally, Moonrise Kingdom is about unconditional love. At one time or another, we’ve all felt unwanted or unworthy. We’ve all lashed out or acted in ways that were beneath us, perhaps so much so that we were scared to admit it to those we care about most. Whether it’s with our sons and daughters, boyfriends and girlfriends, husbands and wives — or even surrogate families — everyone wants to be accepted and loved. What Anderson points out is that it doesn’t matter what age we are, there are universal things we’re all looking for. The ways in which we search may change from childhood to adulthood, but the destination is always the same.

If you have a chance to see Moonrise Kingdom in the theaters, it’s a trip well worth taking.

Democrats craft ‘Stallone Act’ to stop gun violence

April 15, 2012April 15, 2012 by Douglas Ernst 5 Comments

Expendables 2 — Democrats in the U.S. Congress have proposed the Stallone Act (Stop The Action, Let's Love Only Non-violent Entertainment), which would make it nearly impossible for action stars to use firearms in their movies. The lawmakers claim the legislation will result in fewer gun-related crimes in the United States.

Sylvester Stallone has stopped a lot of bad guys in his day, but this summer he’ll have to stop Democrats in the United States Congress if Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee, D-Texas., has her way. Stallone, most known for his iconic roles as Rocky Balboa and Rambo, has had his career resurrected in recent years with the success of his film The Expendables in 2010. This summer, the cigar chomping man’s man, “Barney Ross,” and his merry mercenaries (with a cast that includes Bruce Willis, Arnold Schwarzenegger and Chuck Norris) will be back in action—and Democrats are fuming. The ‘Stallone Act’ seeks to put out that fire—and the guns of August.

When is enough, enough?” asked Sheila Jackson Lee, appearing on cable news shows Sunday morning. “As the president has said, at some point I think you’ve had enough success, and these action heroes have been inciting gun violence for decades. There are strong correlations between violent video games and aggressive behavior, and Congressional Democrats believe the same holds true for the movies put out by Stallone and his ilk. The ‘Stallone Act’ (Stop The Action, Let’s Love Only Non-violent Entertainment) is the Democratic Party’s favor to the American people. It’s hard to take away gun rights when men like Stallone keep glorifying their defensive purposes, but we can make it near-impossible for him to get his guns on the silver screen.

The NRA was swift in responding to news of the Stallone Act, putting out a press release in mere minutes after Jackson-Lee had spoken.

Sheila Jackson Lee and the Democratic Party should ask themselves why Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis and Aronold Schwarzenegger are loved throughout the world, including by the people of some of the most oppressed nations. Besides Stallone’s muscles and charisma, it’s the way he wields his guns. Guns say, “I’m going to do what I want, and you’re not going to stop me.” And by and large, most people just want to live a good life, raise their families in peace, and be left alone. People living in fear societies wish they had firearms readily available, but they don’t—because the guns and money are in the hands of their oppressors. Women walking home late from work in dangerous areas often wish they had a way to defend themselves, but the Democrat’s policies often make it nearly impossible, which only benefits criminals. The Republican Party will do their part by shooting down this law; the American people will only need to do theirs and buy a ticket to The Expendables 2 on August 17.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, when asked whether President Obama would sign the Stallone Act if it came across his desk, would only wistfully say, “In theory the president respects gun rights. The president wishes it didn’t have to come to this. The world would be a better place if Paul Giamatti’s star had shown brighter than Sly’s. We’ll have to wait and see.”

Expendables 2 Trailer Hits: Only Liberal Men and Prissy Girls Not Psyched.

December 14, 2011December 14, 2011 by Douglas Ernst Leave a comment

The Expendables 2 teaser trailer has landed with the force of a Chuck Norris roundhouse to the face. For those of you who haven’t seen the first film, I suggest you do. In an era where the best action hero a man can get is Matt Damon running from his own government, The Expendables brought back big guys with big guns boldly taking on evil bastards. Male moviegoers with erectile dysfunction claimed to have been cured after seeing the MPS AA-12 assault shotgun in action. Well, not really…but the scenes with it unleashing rounds were worth the price of admission alone.

Want to know what the plot is? Who cares! Stallone. Statham. Li. Lundgren. Norris. Crews. Couture. Hemsworth. Van Damme. Willis. Schwarzenegger. That’s all you need to know, and if you need to know more you might want to check and make sure that someone isn’t spiking your orange juice with estrogen.

There are two kinds of people who will pan The Expendables 2: Prissy girls who think they’re a princess, and emasculated liberal men like Chris Matthews, who only watch movies where guys like Paul Giamatti play…emasculated liberal men. I say that not to besmirch Mr. Giamatti (he’s a fine actor), but to illustrate ahead of time that the critics who undoubtedly will hate this movie should immediately be discounted because it wasn’t made for them, and it was never intended to win them over.

What man didn’t grow up wishing he could see his favorite action stars thrown into one kick-ass movie of muscles, guns, fist fights, and explosions? Even in their old age, guys like Bruce Willis exude more manliness than any of the shirtless man-boys running around on screen. Perhaps that’s why Willis was enlisted to play the original G.I. Joe in the next installment…

Deep down, every man worth his salt has dreamed about having the grit in their spit a Sylvester Stallone character displays. Today’s men have to have a “man cave” made in their house. Pathetic… Men today are told to go to deep, dark rooms where they can vicariously live through soldiers in a video game—but don’t you dare bring that into the public sphere! The characters in a Stallone, Willis, or Schwartzenegger movie have always essentially said, “F**k your ‘man cave’! I’m going to be who I am right out in the open, and if you don’t like it I might go Rambo on you.”

This summer, any man who grew up in the 80’s is honor-bound to see this movie. If they have a son, they must take him. And if they don’t, may God and Chuck Norris have mercy on their soul.

Chuck Norris Expendables 2 — If Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, and Chuck Norris star in the same film and you don't see it, should you be tried for treason? Perhaps.

Yippie Ki-yay…Steve Doocy. Bruce Willis is Sheer Awesomeness.

March 10, 2010March 10, 2010 by Douglas Ernst Leave a comment

It was a toss-up tonight. I was either going to blog on the sheer awesomeness of Bruce Willis inspired by his cameo in a Gorillaz video, or Steve Doocy (he’s got a fever, and the only prescription is more nepotism!) Bruce Willis won, which means Doocy gets a reprieve…for now. It’s probably better that way; I’d rather write about someone who is in good company with patriots like Michael Yon than Fox and Sons who get that big break because their dad’s on the payroll Friends.

Bruce Willis admits he has a conservative streak in his veins. How deep is it? I’m not sure. He does mediocre buddy cop movies with liberal guys who are threats to national security.

But that’s what I like about Bruce Willis-he gets along with everyone (even Hollywood guys who hang out in liberal echo chambers), and he’s willing to take chances. For every misstep there’s a Hartigan or a John McClane or David Dunn.

Bruce Willis takes chances that sometimes blow your mind and sometimes come up short, but he almost always plays the hero. And when he’s “on”, he’s on. He’s noble. He’s tough. He’s no-nonsense, and he gets the job done. Bruce Willis is a rarity today, like Clint Eastwood.

Speaking of which, Eastwood has a connection with Gorillaz as well. And since I have a writing background, coming full circle like this dictates I bring this post to an end.

In short, love your conservative movie icons. They don’t come around too often. Yet. And we need to do what we can to cultivate more men like him, because if we don’t we’ll one day have a world where Steve Doocy rules. And when that happens we’re all dead.

I’m just kidding. Sort of.