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Dec 24 2021
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top ten lists

Top Ten Reasons Why Die Hard is a Christmas Movie

Welcome to the party, 3.5 pals.

John McClane. You know him. You love him. He’s America’s favorite divorcee turned terrorist fighter. Is his movie a Christmas movie? Yes it is. From BQB HQ in Fabulous East Randomtown, USA here are the top ten reasons why Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

#10 – It’s All About Love

You don’t think so, but it is. John and Holly love each other but are going through a rough patch and trying to work things out. Officer Al loves his wife and his job and is trying to overcome his feelings of inadequacy so he can be the man his family needs him to be. Even Hans Gruber’s #2, Karl, loves his brother so much that he vows vengeance upon McClane when he kills and defiles his brother’s corpse. (Seriously, I get JMC had to defend himself but did he really have to put a Santa hat on Karl’s brother’s dead body?) BTW what is the name of Karl’s brother? I’m too lazy to look it up.

I’ll admit it is a lack of character development in that we don’t learn who Hans loves, or if he is capable of love. Frankly, he is cold and calculating and just loves money. It would have been cool to have gotten some backstory on how he ended up this way. Rather than the two stupid post trilogy sequels, Hollywood might have invested in some Hans prequels telling us how he became a terrorist/robber. Hollywood, feel free to hire me to write this. I’m not doing anything constructive.

#2 – It Takes Place at Christmas

A lot of movies and TV shows reference or take place during Christmas, but Christmas is a big part throughout. I mean, it happens during an office Christmas party, right?

#3 – A Lot of Rooftop Action

Santa and John. Two dudes that like to hang out on your roof. Santa goes up there to deliver presents. John goes up there to transmit radio messages, hide from terrorists, shoot at Al’s car to get his attention and so on.

#4 – Christmas Music

Run DMC’s Christmas in Hollis. Al humming Let It Snow while he buys twinkies. (BTW where does that fat store clerk get off busting on Al for being fat when he, himself, is fat?)

#5 – There’s a Pregnant Lady

You know who was born in a barn? Jesus. You know who was born at the Nakatomi Office Christmas Party? Holly’s secretary’s kid. Oh, wait. He or she wasnt. But the pregnant lady was pretty close such that your first time watching you wonder if amongst all the chaos there’s going to be a baby delivery as well.

#6 – Hopes. Dreams.

Hans and friends hope to be super rich. John hopes to save the day. (Sidenote: should John have just sat back and let the crooks run off with the dough? Answer: no because remember the crooks were going to load everyone on the helicopters and then blow them up as a diversion so the cops think the terrorists croaked and don’t look for them when they run to the Carribbean and earn twenty percent interest off their stolen bearer bonds.) BTW why do so many robber movies involve bearer bonds? Channeling Seinfeld. What’s the deal with all these bearer bonds? Why do I want to buy a bearer bond when anyone can steal it from me and claim to be the bearer of the bond?

#7 – Al Gets His Mojo Back

Funny how times change. Back then, Al shot a kid and was benched because he became psychologically unable to draw his weapon again. This made Al ineffective as a street cop because if he faced a bad guy carrying a bazooka, three chainsaws, a nuclear bomb, 17 handguns and a pile of ginsu knives, Al still wouldn’t draw his gun because of the fear that he might accidentally shoot a kid again.

Times sure have changed. Today, quite understandably there is a lot of heat on cops to make sure their shoots are clean, in light of a lot of high-profile cases where police shootings have been anything but. Back in 1988, we cheer for Al when he finds the courage to draw his gun and gank Karl before he gets the drop on John but ultimately, if the movie were made today, Al probably would have been canned after shooting the kid and would have never even made it to Nakatomi.

#8 – Every Tool is a Johnson

You know the FBI agents who play into Hans’ hands are Johnson and Johnson, the joke being the government has oodles of non-descript, clean-cut schmucks ready to go by the rulebook even when the rules are being thrown out the window….did you know the anchorman Dick Thornburgh fights with is Harvey Johnson? In conclusion, every useful idiot is a Johnson though I’ll admit I have no idea how this connects to Christmas. Maybe because it’s funny and Christmas is a good time for laughter?

#9 – Who Wouldn’t Want a Ride Through LA in Argyle’s Christmas Limo?

I sure would.

#10 – It’s Christmas, Theo. It is the time for miracles.

Hans wants the miracle of independent wealth. John wants the miracle of saving everyone and reuniting with his wife. What miracle do you want? Now is the time to think about it.

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Dec 25 2016
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Movies

Top Ten Reasons Why Die Hard Should Be Your Favorite Christmas Movie

Merry Christmas and Yippy Ki Yay 3.5 motherfuckers!

It’s time to talk about why Die Hard should be your favorite Christmas movie:

#10 – First action film where the hero didn’t have almost super hero like powers.  In the 1980s, Schwarzenegger and Stallone put out a shit ton of flicks where they’d shoot ten million bad guys without ever reloading and never get a scratch on them.  Meanwhile, McClane is a cop, so he has training, but this one man vs. a terrorist organization is a situation that your average cop couldn’t handle on his own.  Though I love Arnie and Sly, I can relate to McClane.

#9 – Hans Gruber is a bad ass, a gentleman super thief who is all about the money.  He love suits, love talking about gentlemanly activities, and calmly enjoys a shrimp cocktail he snagged from the Nakatomi Christmas party as he informs the guests they’ll be shot if they try anything funny.  RIP Alan Rickman.

#8 – It launched Reginald VelJohnson’s career and gave us Family Matters.  In Die Hard, Reginald plays working class father/cop Al Powell, McClane’s only friend on the outside.  While all the law enforcement big wigs worry about rules and procedures, McClane and Al share that same cut the BS mindset.  Carl Winslow is so similar to Powell that you could, if you want, just assume that Al couldn’t take all the heat after Nakatomi, so he moved to Chicago, transferred to the Chicago PD, and raised a family next door to a nerd named Steve Urkel who lusts after his daughter and blows up his house with his harebrained science experiments.

I really feel there should have been at least one episode where Carl should have shouted, Yes, Steve!  You did do that!  And living next door to you is worse than the Christmas I spent talking John McClane through the Nakatomi Tower terrorist bank robber attack!”

#7 – Argyle plays Run-DMC’s “Christmas in Hollis” as he drives McClane to the Christmas party.  It is truly the best of all Christmas rap songs.  One might argue that “Christmas Wrapping” by the Waitresses qualifies but…eh, it’s really an 80s love ballad disguised as a rap.  The Waitresses were great, but they didn’t represent Queens.

#6 – McClane is also relatable because of his marital troubles.  Sometimes a couple can have a fight and there is no easy answer as to who is right.  Holly got a great job that took her to LA.  Yes, McClane could have supported her but then again he had his own career as a New York police officer and she signed up to be with a man based in New York when she married him.  Reverse the situation and you might think McClane to be a dick if he were hired for a job with the LAPD and demanded that his wife give up a job she enjoyed in NYC.   Hell, if she makes enough, maybe McClane could have just left police work all together and  moved to LA with his wife and taken a job as a security guard at Disney Land or something, though I doubt he would have enjoyed that.

#5 – McClane and Powell both have the same receding hairline, yet Hollywood suits allowed them to be main characters in a movie anyway.  Sigh.  If they ever remake Die Hard without Bruce Willis (blasphemy, for it really is a perfect movie) they surely will hire some hot stud muffin douche with a full head of hair.

#4 – Great lines that have worked their way into pop culture.  “Yippy ki yay motherfucker!” because, after all, McClane was a baby boomer and baby boomers loved their cowboy films.  A similar hero today might quote from a comic book movie or something.  Also, I have found myself saying, “Welcome to the party, pal” on occasion, usually when someone realizes something way later than they should have.

#3 – Die Hard with a Vengeance is really the best sequel in the franchise.  Die Hard 2 is ok and/or acceptable.  However, in 4 and 5 (the films that take place in the 2000s), the franchise takes a bad turn when they do break the “average guy caught at the wrong place at the wrong time” as we see McClane starting to have those Arnie/Sly-like supernatural action hero powers.  Yes, I think a plucky young cop might be able to suck it up and run through a floor full of glass with no shoes on and survive (as it happens in the original).  No, I don’t a cop could hang onto the nose of a fighter jet and survive (as happens in 4).

#2 – Dick Thornburgh is an epic douche, as most media types are.  See?  Reporters were douches like before social media.  All about hype, not really caring if they hurt anyone (i.e. barging into the McClane residence and broadcasting that Holly is married to John, thus making the situation much more dangerous).

#1 – Arnie was originally considered for McClane’s role.  Arnie was great, and very much the John Wayne of the 1980s, but I’m glad Willis got the role.  Die Hard might have been ok with Arnie, but a massive Austrian weightlifter who probably could rip terrorists in half off screen as well as on screen just isn’t as relatable as an average cop with a receding hairline and a wife he’s separated from.

In conclusion, Die Hard is my favorite Christmas movie and it should be yours too.  Thanks, 3.5

 

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Jan 15 2016
10 Comments
Movies

RIP Alan Rickman

Sad day, 3.5 readers.

As you know, I’m a big Die Hard fan.  Every Christmas, I put it on while everyone else is watching It’s a Wonderful Life or some such nonsense.

Hans Gruber.  It was Rickman’s first role.  If you ask me, he could have stopped there and been on top had he wanted to.

The 1980’s gave us amazing action films.  Schwarzenegger. Stallone.  Big ass bad ass muscle dudes who could eviscerate 20 bad guys with a pinky finger.

Then late in the decade, Die Hard changed the game.  Bruce Willis as a New York cop who finds himself in the wrong place at the wrong time.

Sure, he’s a cop.  He’s collared some bad guys.  But your average cop isn’t prepared to take on a group of highly trained terrorists on his own, thus providing the Average Joes in the audience what it would be like to be stuck in a situation where everything is riding on them.

Arnie and Sly?  Awesome but not relatable.  Bruce?  Awesome AND relatable.

To top it all off, the villain.  Hans Gruber.  Rickman provided us with a memorable character.  A charming German gent, intelligent, sophisticated, you’d probably enjoy getting a beer with him and talking about world affairs if he hadn’t been a cunning murderer/criminal mastermind.

Gruber wasn’t the typical muscle bound martial arts trained baddie from the 1980’s.  His main weapon was his brain.

The part where he pretends to be an American, “Bill Clay.”  The part where he very calmly shoots Takagi in the head for a perceived lack of cooperation.  Gruber was in control of his emotions.  He didn’t do things out of rage or anger but rather, out of a carefully thought out plan.  There was money to be had.  He wanted it.  He went through whoever he needed to to get it.  You never got the sense that he enjoyed killing anyone but rather, that any resulting deaths were just losses in an overall business plan.

Maybe that’s why he was so scary.  Take emotion out of the picture and a bad guy is capable of anything and worse, there’s never a warning sign as to what’s about to come or what’s on his mind.

Yes, he was also Professor Snape.  Yes, he was also that funny vulcan caricature in that Star Trek parody movie whose name escapes me now.

But before all that, he was Gruber.  Hans Gruber.

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Oct 15 2015
4 Comments
Movies

Why There Shouldn’t Be a Die Hard Prequel

Hi 3.5 readers.

Yes, I am trapped in the middle of a zombie apocalypse but I do have Alien Jones’ space phone to keep me updated on the latest pop culture news.

So this idea for a Die Hard prequel starring Bruce Willis about John McClane’s early days as a NYC cop.

RIDICULOUS!

Here’s the thing.

First.  Let me say this.  Big Die Hard fan here.  It’s my favorite Christmas movie.

3.5 READERS – But BQB, it’s an action film!

So what?  It takes place during an office Christmas party taken over by evil terrorists!  Every year without fail, when you’re watching the Grinch or It’s a Wonderful Life or whatever I’m watching John McClane save Nakatomi.

Here’s why the original Die Hard was so great.

It starred an average guy in the lead role.

Originally, Arnold Schwarzenegger was going to be McClane.  Would have been ok.  Probably would have ended up being mildly memorable.

But Bruce Willis?  Then a pretty average looking dude, hell he was balding and going with that “I’m fighting the good fight against hair loss” hairstyle at the time.

And it made all the difference.

Sure, McClane was a cop but in real life the average cop is not equipped to take down a team of highly trained terrorists all by himself.

That’s what made the movie awesome.  It basically asked YOU to step into McClane’s shoes.  You’re not Arnold.  You don’t have muscles up the wazoo.  You have average speed, strength, agility, intelligence…and now it’s up to YOU to save the day.

McClane was more or less one of the first average heroes in an action film.

Aside from the idea that a younger actor will play a young McClane – I mean, I get that – sure, Bruce Willis can’t play a young version of himself.  But Willis is so McClane I don’t know how its possible to find anyone else to play this iconic role.

That’s crazy in and of itself but what’s really crazy about the idea is that if you create an adventure where McClane had some kind of amazing fight between himself and various bad dudes BEFORE the original, then how can I ever enjoy the original again?

Because again, that’s the beauty of the original – average guy fights against the odds.  Give McClane an adventure that happened BEFORE Nakatomi and well, ok who gives a shit then, of course John can handle Hans Gruber and Co, he handed X bad guy in the damn prequel.

BOOO!!!! BOO!!! BOO! I say BOOO!!!!  Don’t make it Hollywood.  Don’t make it.

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