I watched the perfect holiday movie the other night. I've seen it a thousand times. I love it more and more each time.
You can keep your It's A Wonderful Life and Love Actually, even though I love them both. You can hold off showing National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation or Miracle on 34th Street. "Bah, humbug," I say to A Christmas Carol, whichever version you prefer. And if you even mention Deck the Halls or Christmas With the Kranks (nudge-nudge, wink-wink) to me, I'll hit you with a fruitcake, you fruitcake.
No, the perfect holiday movie is Die Hard. Yes. I'm serious.
It has warm family feelings. It has a happy ending. It has a Christmas party. It has festive wrapping, even if it's just to tape a gun to John McClain's bloody upper back. Plus it has action, adventure, and mayhem, something sorely missing from most holiday movies, except possibly Santa Claus Conquers the Martians, and only then because of Pia Zadora starring in it at the tender age of 10 (she puts the "m" in mayhem).
It's hard to believe Die Hard is 22 years old. I remember seeing it in the theaters when it first came out in 1988, and being totally blown away by it. It was different than any other action movie I had ever seen. It was dirty, bloody, brutal, profane--and all in a GOOD way. Bruce Willis was different than any other action hero, better than Schwarzenegger, Norris, and Stallone. Grittier and more real. And I loved the fact that they just had him talk to himself for exposition. It was such a WTF moment. We had to know what he was thinking and hearing someone's thoughts in a movie is such a b-s thing...so hey, let's just have him talk to himself out loud. And Alan Rickman as the bad guy, Hans Gruber...don't get me started! BEST. BAD. GUY. EVER.
With the exception of the absence of Twitter and cellphones, Die Hard still holds up today. The only cellphone in it is a giant "carphone" that could be used to bludgeon a bad guy to death. Let's face it, in this day and age, the takeover of Nakatomi Tower by "terrorists" would be one cellphone call away from being over. And I can just see the Tweets:
Held hostage at company Xmas party :(
Boss just shot dead by terrorist at Xmas party...guess this means no bonus this year.
I was totally nailing Amber from accounting until that Eurotrash bunch burst in.
Yeah. Kinda not the same. Still if you're in the mood this season for a little holiday movie fun, I thoroughly recommend the gift that keeps on giving: the original, one-and-only (okay, there were FOUR, but the other three suck) Die Hard.
Yippee-kay-yay-Santa-f*cker.
I used to trek over to the Ontario Place Cinesphere to watch the original DIE HARD every January for a few years in a row (they would show DH and a handful of other 70MM films in the dead of Winter). It always sold out, and usually it was for a ten day engagement, if memory serves. A really great movie.
Posted by: Sheldonia | December 28, 2010 at 07:31 PM
We watched Die Hard on Christmas at our house this year too. Honestly.
Posted by: Maryanne | December 27, 2010 at 09:14 PM