Let's settle the debate. Die Hard.

Die Hard is a Christmas movie. People who don’t get it should watch it on repeat until they come to their senses, or they lose their senses. Either way is an acceptable end to Christmas.

“Now I have a machine gun. Ho Ho Ho”.

I worked on the comedy roast when Bruce made the joke about Die Hard not being a Christmas movie. I’ll just say, Bruce didn’t come up with that. The writers did. That said, Die Hard, Die Hard 2, Lethal Weapon… All Christmas movies. If you think I’m wrong. Then Home Alone isn’t a Christmas movie either

That hair did not do Bonnie Bedelia justice. I thought it was awful even then.
Contrast that with this 2013 interview. In 2013 she was 65, and somehow manages to look even better than she did 30 years ago. And a lot of that has to do with that 80’s hair that made her appear older than she actually was at the time.

Don’t ask me. I think City of Lost Children is a Christmas movie because of one scene with a creepy singing Santa.

RIP Daniel Emilfork

Well, I watched this Christmas masterpiece for the first time in a long time, still as great as ever. I even noticed the terrorist Kristoff who is in the movie so briefly he never really registered in my brain. I used to watch the film all the time at Christmas, but then all of a sudden there was a surge of people saying “Die Hard is the best Christmas movie!” and it got annoying so I stopped. Instead of making it a tradition to watch Die Hard every year, I instead started to watch the best Christmas/New Years movie of all time, Trading Places.

The problem is that you missed the real clue here. JMC is not a reference to Jesus Christ by dropping the M. It stands for Joseph, Mary and Christ, definitive proof that Die Hard is a christmas movie!

-xtien

“Come out to the Coast. We’ll get together. Have a few laughs.”

I’m so doing that for our tree next Christmas.

IFC has a Christmas marathon, so, debate settled

I don’t get the debate. It’s a Christmas movie. For a sizeable number of people Die Hard is associated with their Christmas experience, and more and more make it a part of their Christmas habits. It might not be everyone’s Christmas movie, but then only a few things are. I don’t think it’s about message as it is about rites and association.

The Lord of the Ring don’t have anything Christmas-related at all story-wise or message-wise, but I know numerous of people who consider them Christmas movies and treat them as such because the three movies got released in December of the respective year, and many then watched at/around Christmas for the first time.

Disclaimer: I love Die Hard, but it’s not something that’s part of my Christmas rhythm. That said, the people in my friend list who still feel the need to post something along the lines of “Gonna watch the one and only Christmas movie now: Die Hard!” and somehow think it’s still funny/edgy and makes them feel like a unique rebellious snowflake… sheesh.

One of my kids got me this for Xmas.

Thanks to this wonderful thread, I bought Die Hard this morning on Vudu. My first 4K movie! Of course, I don’t have a 4K TV, so I won’t be able to see it that way, but still. I bought The Matrix on DVD long before I got a DVD player.

I got that last year. Just more proof of its status as a Christmas movie.

I bought the movie and watched it yesterday. I have to admit I didn’t end up loving it as much as when I first saw it (in the 80s) or when I rewatched it (in the 90s). But there were quite a few things that were really entertaining.

I’d completely forgotten about Johnson and Johnson, and how they were described at the end of the movie in the credits as Big Johnson and Little Johnson. Their presence also elicited the biggest laugh of the movie for me yesterday too.

“They’re gonna need some more FBI guys, I guess.”

You asked me for a Christmas miracle, I give you the F…B…I.

Watching it now isn’t as good as the first time, of course. But even watching it now you can see how well paced it is, how well the actors involved played their roles, and how iconic it was for an action movie. Hell it defined action movies from that point on.

One other thing I noted yesterday while watching the movie: Holy hell there’s a LOT of lens flare in Die Hard. I didn’t remember that aspect. It’s most extreme in the scenes where Hans is caught by John and pretends to be an escaped hostage. I think McTiernan definitely dialed up the lens flare there on purpose.

And yes, I did notice how well paced it was. They really did a great job in stretching out the funny and the tense and the exciting and the quiet character-building moments.

It really stood out to me how Bruce Willis is really trying. Over the last few years I’m so used to him just saying his lines and relying only on personal charisma and his regular delivery and being Mr. I-don’t-care. I’d forgotten that back in the day he had a lot of range in comparison to the present Bruce Willis.

He truly honed his smart aleck delivery in Moonlighting which started prior to and finished just after Die Hard. He does seem to dial it in these days though. The rumor is that he’s an asshole, but I mean, let a person play that role for so long and you begin to wonder if they were that person to begin with, or if always playing the role made them that way.

I was surprised to see Die Hard wasn’t his first movie on IMDB. It certainly made him a star along with Moonlighting though.

Indeed there is!

-xtien

“…and call me when you hit the last lock.”