Oh, I don’t dispute that some people think it’s a Christmas movie, and therefore watch it during Christmas, and probably even think Ode to Joy is a Christmas song. I just dispute that a summer action movie that happens to take place when a big-ass skyscraper is shut down so the terrorists and hero can have gunfights without a lot of collateral damage has any thematic relevance to Christmas.
That said, “NOW I HAVE A MCHINE GUN HO-HO-HO” wouldn’t have worked nearly as well as “NOW I HAVE A MACHINE GUN HAPPY LABOR DAY.”
But if the movie did happen during Labor Day, during the office’s Labor Day party, and McClain was visiting his estranged wife and family because it was Labor Day, and they played Labor Day songs all through the movie, then it would be a Labor Day movie.
I think if you limit Christmas movies to the incredibly narrow set of stories that have a deliberate thematic relevance to Christmas you do them a grave disservice. I’m not saying there’s not a tiny handful of movies that do that in a way that’s not completely embarassingly saccharine and without retreading the same two notes that everyone above the age of six has already seen a million times. But not very many.
Those don’t matter. They suck. Have you watched the Princess Bride?
As for Harry Potter being a Christmas movie, I know someone whose parents considered it the Devil’s work (the new D&D). She has never read or watched the movies because of that.
I’m already breaking my thread silence to tell you all I love you for making me laugh this morning. For bringing me joy if you will. We should add that to the list of things for Christmas, bringing joy.
You’re perhaps under the impression that I try to watch good movies :P
I try to watch movies I think I’ll enjoy, which are often not very good movies, but are also generally not terrible movies. But longstanding high acclamation doesn’t really guarantee I’ll like something.
Okay, it seems like you are being genuine with this, but not doing exactly that actually seems crazy to me. Shouldn’t Christmas movies be. . . about Christmas?
For what it’s worth, I’ve never seen It’s a Wonderful Life, either, which seems to be the other principle contender in the “movies not about Christmas that are about Christmas*” category. And no, I don’t really have any interest in seeing it. See above response :P
To everyone, not just Armando: how are we defining “about Christmas”? Seems like that’s a moving target, culturally speaking. On a long enough timeline, enough people saying Die Hard is a Christmas movie will simply make it true.
I assert that substantially featuring Christmas is also being about Christmas in a less “message movie” way.
And by substantially featuring I mean like, being primarily set in and around Christmas, that kinda thing. Not telling the story of an entire school year that happens to pass through Christmas, like Harry Potter.
This is probably the most confusing thing I’ve read today. I’d say all week, but that remains that people are actually passionately serious about the Die Hard thing.
Oh. I kinda figure a movie substantially featuring Christmas was about Christmas for any reasonable use of “about.” I mean, insofar as, like, Star Wars is about space, or whatever.
I just had the impression that Die Hard taking place over Christmas was fairly background, apart from some quickly dispensed-with character motivation-for-being-around and a funny quote or two from bad guys.
