Bruce Willis to Retire from Acting

Bruce Willis and his family made an announcement today that Willis will be retiring from acting after being diagnosed with aphasia, which affects a person’s ability to speak, write and understand language, both verbal and written. Willis had suffered numerous injuries over the years and it is most likely attributed to this.

Willis' next film is Fortress: Sniper's Eye which comes out April 29.

https://pagesix.com/2022/03/30/bruce...334.1648657648

__________________
It's All About the Movies
http://www.worldfilmgeek.com

It's a real shame Willis was diagnosed with that. He had a fine acting career though.

__________________
IMDb
Letterboxd

His career ended with a whimper, but I think he probably needed some paychecks on the way out.



Rumor was that he couldn't remember lines on set anymore and had lines fed to him through an earpiece. He kind of went out like Lagosi in Ed Wood movies.



I still think his best work was on Moonlighting. And I will confess to liking aspects of his vanity project, Hudson Hawk.

Oh, shit. Aphasia is what Terry Jones had and subsequently died of, and it was just a horribly horribly sad way to go.

Just for the heck of it, here are my favorite films he was in:

1. The Sixth Sense
2. Pulp Fiction
3. Twelve Monkeys
4. Unbreakable
5. Die Hard

Take out Sixth Sense, and replace it with maybe The Fifth Element, and you'd have mine

Terribly sad.

Willis has been mocked and raked through the coals lately for his career choices, but this definitely puts things in a different perspective. Whenever people brought up his recent DTV films, I brought up this article, which explains the logistics of this "business model".

The King of the Geezer Teasers Inside Randall Emmett’s direct-to-video empire, where many Hollywood stars have found lucrative early retirement.

And just today, I found this article which came out at the beginning of the month, obviously before all this news came out, since they're pretty much trashing him. But reading it now, you kinda understand the "why".

From the highest-paid actor in Hollywood to straight-to-video B-movies: The rise and fall of Bruce Willis

This excerpt is particularly interesting for me...

I understand that he makes at least $1M from each of this films, which means he has made more or less $20M in less than 10 years, with little effort. Knowing what we know now, it makes a lot of sense that he would choose this career path to leave his family set (he has two young children), pay medical bills, and whatnot.

Like I've always said, work is work.

__________________

RLM only just last week did a second Bruce Willis related video in order to acknowledge rumours of dementia being a reason for his tumble away from legit productions, into the greasy arms of Randall Emmett. Turns out to not have been a rumour.


They cover a lot of the relevant ground here as well.

Even though Willis had done a lot of indie action flicks lately, the directors of some of those films had nothing but nice things to say about him on the set via my interviews with them. He's worked with Edward Drake and James Cullen Bressack on numerous occasions and they feel honored to have worked with him.

I'd honestly say it takes a lot more effort and determination to make B movies than a blockbuster. Often these A list actors are picking up a lot of extra duties outside the scope of acting, so it's definitely work. And I'll always be impressed by someone who can make a lot of movies in a short time period. No matter the reason.

Yeah, they might not be great, but they at least cater to what the actor is known for so if you're a fan of them you're going to enjoy them regardless.

__________________
"This is that human freedom, which all boast that they possess, and which consists solely in the fact, that men are conscious of their own desire, but are ignorant of the causes whereby that desire has been determined." -Baruch Spinoza

Putting aside the "greasiness" of Randall Emmett (which crumbs mentioned in his above post), I always say, work is work. As an audience, we like to attribute a certain loftiness to an actor's work, and there are certainly some actors that see it that way, but at the end of the day, it's work. You walk to set, do your thing, then go back home. I've never understood people being offended by other people's career choices, especially when it's a proved actor like Willis.

All I know is that from what I've heard about this disease, it is ugly what it does to a person and Willis has a rough road ahead of him, my heart goes out to him and his family.

Bruce was always willing to work with anybody so the right director could get great stuff from him. The rare actor with a top twenty five list of films I would recommend.

1. Die Hard
2. Looper
3. Moonrise Kingdom
4. The Fifth Element
5. Pulp Fiction
6. Sin City
7. The Siege
8. 12 Monkeys
9. Nobody's Fool
10. Die Hard With a Vengeance
11. Unbreakable
12. The Sixth Sense
13. Red
14. Die Hard 2
15. Look Whose Talking
16. Motherless Brooklyn
17. Death Becomes Her
18. The Whole Nine Yards
19. Planet Terror
20. Surrogates
21. The Kid
22. Alpha Dog
23. Split
24. Armageddon
25. The Story of Us

Cool guy, iconic actor. Sad to hear this news.

I am not directing this at Willis, whose situation is obviously VERY different.

I am not offended by an actor's career choices. But I do get annoyed when I go into a film with an actor who can be great/good, and then they seem to have put in absolutely zero effort. For example, if you paid to watch a baseball exhibition game with a player you like, and that player refused to do anything but a half-hearted attempt at a bunt. Like, yes, that is their choice. But it feels a bit like a slap in the face.

I watched a film with Willis in it back in October, Marauders. Here is part of what I wrote:
Everything in this film works against any kind of flow or coherence. The editing, something I am not normally very aware of, is choppy and disorienting. . . . This is also one of those films where Bruce Willis clearly got paid to show up for like 1.5 days of shooting, and I could swear that half of his scenes used a double for reverse shots..

Frankly, understanding what was happening now explains not just how Willis performed in this movie (which was, to say the least, minimal) but also the editing, which cut SO FREQUENTLY in conversation-based scenes, probably to cover him not being able to deliver large chunks of dialogue in one take. And I was probably correct about the egregious use of the double. And if I am noticing use of a double, you know it is extensive and obvious.

This is a really tragic situation. I don't blame Willis for working as hard as he could to profit off of his talent while it was still possible, nor do I blame him for keeping his situation private as long as possible. But when you don't understand why an actor is making those choices, it can feel almost like a breach of faith. "Oh, my name was on the poster and you expected me to put in effort? LOL!"

Not sure he is a totally cool guy,





but yes an iconic actor and I think we're all sad to hear the news. Bruce has an old-Hollywood style to him and he did bring us some great characters in some great films.

So more effort and determination go into “hard kill” (Bruce Willis 2020 film) than “saving private Ryan” okay

Yeah maybe if “Hard Kill” actually had any merit.

I think the distinction should be good or bad not b movie or blockbuster when it comes to determination and effort.

I find it odd that you are impressed by anyone doing a lot of something that isn’t much good just by value of doing a lot of it, I’m unimpressed by it, quality over quantity any day of the week. It also seems they are showing up for a day and a half of filming even if it does appear to be their film.

“They’re not great” is just too much of an understatement considering the whole point of this is they are bloody dreadful.

we are talking about actors who are known for making good films making lots of bad films and fans not getting what they expect and being duped into it and you are like “they cater to the fans” which I guess is why they have 1.4 ratings on IMDb.

Utter garbage

Sorry to hear about Willis anyway.

I’m sorry to hear you don’t like Bruce Willis movies. He’s a great actor.

I love some Bruce Willis films and would call myself a fan. Cheers.