last action hero - The Screengrab

John McTiernan Jailbird Update

The last time we checked in on John McTiernan, the director of Die Hard and Last Action Hero (as well as his 1986 debut Nomads, which has a special place in my heart as the first movie that ever put my date to sleep), he was waiting for the hammer to come down, again. As we recounted just the other day, in 2006 McTiernan pled guilty to the charge of lying to the FBI in the course of their investigation of rogue Hollywood P.I. Anthony Pellicano, only to subsequently withdraw his plea, explaining that at the time he entered it, "he didn't have adequate legal representation, was jet-lagged and under the influence of alcohol," all of which probably amounted to a replication of the condition he was in when he made Nomads. It took until two months ago for the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals to rule definitively that he did have the right to withdraw his plea. Now, to the surprise of no one, McTiernan has been indicted on two counts of lying to the Feds and a shiny new charge of perjury, which is based on statements he made to a federal judge in the course of withdrawing his guilty plea to the FBI-related charges. McTiernan's lawyer complains that "The prosecutor has taken one count and tried to expand it into more charges in a new indictment. There seems to be retribution because John refused to play ball the way the prosecutors wanted and because we were successful on appeal." Either that or the prosecutor just saw Nomads. Hey, if you don't like hearing about it every two sentences, take up a collection and give me back my eight dollars.

New World Order Update--"Die Hard" Director to Karl Rove and the FBI: "J'accuse!"

John McTiernan used to be best known as the director of Die Hard and its second sequel, The Hunt for Red October, and (shudder) Last Action Hero. The last ten years have not been kind; his 1999 remake of The Thomas Crown Affair had its modest, reheated charms, but the other movie he released that year, The 13th Warrior, sank like a stone, and the two films he's released since then, Rollerball (2002) and Basic (2003), both hit with a splat. McTiernan would of course love to redeem himself by getting back to work and turning out a new string of hits, but McTiernan says that his career has been sidelined by his legal problems stemming from the Anthony Pellicano case. In 2006, two years before Pellicanos was convicted on charges of illegal wiretapping and racketeering, McTiernan pled guilty to charges of lying to the FBI about the case. Sometime after that, he entered into a prolonged legal battle over whether he had the right to withdraw his plea, and last February, his request was granted. According to McTiernan, the FBI, which has indicated that it will continue to pursue its case against him, has stuck him in a position of legal limbo that has rendered him insurable, and therefoere unemployable, by Hollywood studios.