Posted on 11/28/2023 7:17:02 PM PST by DoodleBob
Die Hard is heading back to theaters for the holiday season.
Originally released in 1988, Die Hard is a bloody action movie that happens to be set on Christmas. Every year, fans debate over whether they consider the film to be a genuine Christmas movie, or just a film that happens to be set on Christmas, with some arguing that there's a big difference between the two. In any case, per AMC, it's been announced that Die Hard is coming back to theaters for this year's Christmas season, set to hit the big screen for a limited time starting on Dec. 8, 2023.
The debate has waged on for many years. Last year, the city of San Diego declared Die Hard to be the "greatest Christmas movie of all time" in a social media post. Die Hard's very own Bruce Willis mentioned the debate in his Comedy Central roast in 2018, joking, "Die Hard isn't a Christmas movie, it's a g*ddamn Bruce Willis movie!" As this was said as a joke, it's hard to gauge Willis' true opinion, but the actor's mother, Marlene, has said she's adamant that the film is not a Christmas movie.
Die Hard's Director Says It's Up to Fans to Decide
"If the audience decides they want to make it a Christmas movie, it’s a Christmas movie," Die Hard director John McTiernan also said of the debate last year on the Empire Film podcast. "It turns out that way. It wasn’t intended as a Christmas movie, although the fact that it was deliberately built around Christmas – but not intended to be a Christmas movie. But the fact that it was a Christmas movie had a lot to do with... it’s politically pretty strident. And the only reason that survived was that the people in the studio who would have stopped that were deceived, because they thought it was just an action movie about a Christmas party that goes wrong."
Die Hard starred Bruce Willis as John McClane, a New York detective who gets caught up in a terrorist takeover of a Los Angeles skyscraper on Christmas Eve. The film also starred Alan Rickman, Alexander Godunov, Bonnie Bedelia, and Reginald VelJohnson. Based on Roderick Thorp's novel Nothing Lasts Forever, the film was written by Jeb Stuart and Steven E. de Souza. John McTiernan directed.
Advance tickets for Die Hard's return to theaters can be picked up at AMC's website. To check out the classic film at home, it's currently streaming for free on Tubi, and it's also available to watch on Hulu.
Source: AMC
“Dominic the Donkey.”
Hmmm. That’s a new one on me.
I Want a Hippopotamus for Christmas
(ouch, my ears)
Shoot even Annie Lennox on Winter Wonderland is easier to listen to (but not by much)
[Galatians 2:20
1 Timothy 2:5.]
Those are good ones!
Also set to music:
Romans 8:38-39 (my favorite)
2 Timothy 1:12
Independence Day is an Independence Day movie
I love Die Hard movies. Right now, I’m watching “Live Free or Die Hard;” one of my faves. Last day it is going to be shown on HBO. 😞
Kind of. It starts out during the Christmas season but the Plot takes us past New Years and the Climax happens during the first trading days of the New Year. Christmas is long past by the time the heroes of the film are on a boat in the Caribbean.
The typical Christmas movie will wrap everything up before or at Christmas. It will end with a carol or contemporary holiday song. So you leave the movie with some Christmas spirit. You're usually left with the knowledge that the main characters are all going to spend Christmas with loved ones at home.
Die Hard while not intending to be a Christmas movie uses Christmas to heighten how evil the terrorists are. John McClane (Bruce Willis) is inadvertently saving Christmas by saving his wife and the people held hostage. The choice of let it snow, let it snow, let it snow at the end of the movie adds the perfect irony since it doesn't snow in LA and the only thing that is spread along the ground are dead bodies. So the weather is certainly frightful and home is going to seem pretty good at this point.
McClane also learns something about the rift between he and his wife. His anger over her taking a job in LA and using her maiden name is pretty insignificant when it compared to possibly losing her forever. His career, her career don't take on the same importance. Indeed in the sequel we learn John moved out to LA to be a cop to be close to his family. There always has to be moral in a Christmas story.
One thing Trading Places does do well in its use of Christmas is when Dan Aykroyd's character hits rock bottom dressed as Santa Claus stealing food from the cormpany Christmas party, only to end up drunk on the subway passed out. Could anyone have more of a complete downfall? and on Christmas no less.
They have “experts” for that sort of thing?
Ah, well, if they can have credited college courses for LGBTQ Underwater Basket Weaving...
Especially when Beaker flips Scrooge off!
Yeah, that song is not universally loved. At all. I can accept some of the more secular carols that didn't spring from a hymnal, but that one is just annoying.
That one makes me nostalgic - for the regional radio playlists of my youth. See, as a kid growing up in New Orleans, I never heard it on local radio (likewise "¿Dónde Está Santa Claus?") - not even once. Aimed at different markets, I guess. Now, thanks to satellite radio and streaming audio apps, I can have *all* the holiday diversity.
Funny.
William Atherton:
-----------------
Slimeball in Die Hard.
Slimeball in Die Hard 2.
Slimeball in Real Genius.
Slimeball in Ghostbusters (an EPA slime ball at that).
Slimeball in Bio-Dome (makes Pauly Shore look virtuous).
William Atherton: the best slime-ball actor ever!
Reindeer Games )))
If Die Hard isn’t a Christmas movie, then neither is Its a Wonderful Life: its about economics and banking.
Played the jerk EPA guy in Ghostbusters
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