Tuesday, December 25, 2007

"Now I have a machine gun ho-ho-ho"

I don't know that there's a better Christmas movie that's ever been made than Die Hard. The regular cop shooting the hell out of terrorists is everything America and Jesus stood for. Especially when that cop is played by Bruce Willis.

Off the top of my head, the following are the best Christmas movies ever:

1. Die Hard
2. Scrooged
3. Die Hard 2
4. Bad Santa
5. It's a Wonderful Life

Now you may look at number five and think to yourself, "What the hell? Where did that come from?" In my defense, it's a good movie. Also, Donna Reed was really hot. Donna Reed in that film is hotter than just about anyone to grace the silver screen.

Now back to Die Hard... I can suspend just about all disbelief if I'm enthralled, but can anyone really believe the clerk at the convenience store thought that Reginald Vel Johnson's Sgt. Al Powell was buying all that junk food for his wife? I can't. That's really my only sticking point with the whole film. Really, I think the film is flawless. The screenplay is witty and taut. Bruce Willis was brilliantly cast as McClane. Rickman's a great villian. You've got the Chinese guy that was a henchman in every movie in the '80's. There's a Huey Lewis look-alike. The asshole Vice Principal from The Breakfast Club and the quintessential '80's asshole, William Atherton are present. Die Hard has pretty much everything you could want in a movie. Oh, yeah, and tons of violence.

As for Atherton, according to the commentary track for Ghostbusters, people would drive by him in New York years after Ghostbusters came out and yell "dickless" at him. From all accounts, he's a nice guy, and he did make his money from being an actor, but you've got to feel bad for the guy whose three most recognizable roles are that of Walter Peck in Ghostbusters, Professor Jerry Hathaway in Real Genius, and Richard Thornburg in Die Hard.

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