Audiovisual Cultures episode 81 – Die Hard with Kristie Smith automated transcript

this is audiovisual cultures the podcast that explores different areas of the arts and cultural production with me paula blair visit patreon.com forward slash av cultures to find out more and to join the pod hello and welcome to the party i am super happy to be joined for this festive special by christy smith to talk about that heartwarming christmas classic die hard christy if you indulge me away seconds before i bring you in properly i just need to have a way nerd out for a second because you last joined us for episode 18 when we talked about that other classic spicers this is going to be episode 81 and the math is just a bit special all the threes and nines so i just needed to point that out there for everybody and now we can move on with our day i like the film choices i bring i like to show up and just lower the tone of the room not a bit of it not a bit of it so christy how are you first of all i’m fine thank you for asking are you doing okay doing all right it’s just creaking to the end of 2020 now this film is your choice would you be so kind as to tell us all why are we watching die hard well i haven’t seen it for ages but why are we talking about die hard die hard has retroactively become a christmas film so it was originally a summer release i think it came out in july of 1988 but it’s better christmas time to say fantastic christmas phil yes that’s injury because i was thinking about the big summer blockbuster would be a high octane action movie and we’ve still got that model because i was thinking about when we had talked about skyscraper on the podcast age and of course die hard is one of the models for that film so i was wondering about that actually i had written notes about that so that’s very very useful information there’s not probably going to be a lot of useful information on this show because i think we’re going to keep it light but that’s not to say useful information is prohibited we love useful information of all kinds in this show it is a big debate that people keep having i have already seen it on twitter so far this year is is die hard a christmas film go don’t help me you know so would that be your opinion then it’s retrospectively a christmas movie i would say so yeah i mean it’s that is christmas and it’s especially a set on christmas eve and it’s about surviving the night to make it to christmas day i think that’s a very christmassy thing i think um when you watch the film i think the main character definitely thinks it’s a christmas film and they make a lot of decisions which make it a little bit more christmassy and i respect that i really respect that okay maybe we’ll get some examples out of you from that yeah okay so um the main part of die hard is that john mcclane is a recently separated man who’s traveled to los angeles california to see his wife and kids for christmas eve he goes to a christmas party at his wife’s workplace nakatomi tower and there is a terrorist invasion and he’s kind of caught in the crossfire and he has to survive the night and maybe save his wife and maybe save christmas i think yeah it’s definitely it is so the first person he kills there is a moment where he has his body and he’s trying on his shoes because john is very vulnerable and barefoot from the majority of the film the shoes don’t fit just about his tiny tiny feet but there’s a moment where he slides the shoes across the floor and he sees a center costume he’s like okay this is my moment what he does is he dresses the guy in a little fat behalf and he writes a cheeky little message on the jumper and he sends it down in the list to the people on the 30th floor just to say hey i’m here and i’m going to [ __ ] things up

in that scene it’s really interesting i think the quiz on youtube i think it’s definitely worth watching it and watching it shop by shot so you can figure out the fact that you don’t see what’s in the list until alan rickman’s character and the other terrorists that you watched in the list such a big surprise for us as well i think it might be maybe the world’s most alternative christmas cracker that’s ever existed sent down a little present and fair enough it’s a dead body dressed up and then he writes a message on the jumper which is now i have a machine gun and then when they pull down the rest of the jumper it says ho ho ho and if that’s not an example of a christmas classic of a really bad joke on a christmas cracker then i don’t know what is that’s a very fine example and of course then hand screw scraper does repeat the ho ho ho doesn’t he yeah it’s pretty quicktastic i mean do you think that’s maybe i don’t know maybe that’s what they’re going for maybe it’s an 80s thing but i think that’s a really nice point about the christmas cracker joke and the idea of the quips and the quintessential 80s action movie yeah it definitely has the moments of comedy which are a little bit more ridiculous and a little bit funnier because they’re happening at such an extreme situation yeah throughout the film there’s a lot of references to christmas music when john is in the limo to nakatomi tower the guy who’s driving the limo plays music forum it’s um run dmc’s christmas time and holiday so when it starts playing he’s like hey why can’t we have christmas music like this is christmas music and i think that kind of indicates that this is a different kind of christmas film if we’re seeing it as a christmas film similar to that when al powell is leaving nakatomi tower so he’s the police officer that’s called to check out what they think is a false alarm coming to himself it’s less though he goes to them to them the likes and then he calls it the dispatch and he’s like hey everything’s fine and then he’s like no let it snow let it snow and then another dead body falls from the 30th floor onto his car yeah i think it’s very ironic that the use of christmas throughout the film just the kind of highlight it’s not a great situation to be in but definitely not on christmas do you have friends like you’ve got your christmas specials to watch the next day and it is a way of it’s almost literally hooking him in isn’t it you know that john mcclane casts the body out like a fishing line and captures the car nearly with it and then he says welcome to the party yeah mother flipper and

i’m gonna put this in brooklyn

yeah i don’t know i i like the richard iowa approach just to really implicate that right here part of this you’re not leaving dude you know you’re here for the long haul i need your help you brought up nine nine there as well i’m not sure if we’re allowed to talk about it yet or ever because of the implications with police brutality and things and it all got very strange back in the summer about discussions around nine nine because it really down plays it’s really a different universe in which the police are not doing that to people this is die hard as a a real cultural pinnacle this is it being heavily referenced in lots of other american tv shows and movies and everything i mean it’s so shaped around so many of the episodes so many of the plot points and nine are shaped around jake peralta’s obsession with this okay even right down to the isn’t it the wedding cake is nakatomi tar one of my favorite examples and i did re what this was my preparation for this as well as watching some clips on youtube to refresh my memory i watched the bob’s burgers episodes called work hard or die trying girl it’s where the kids they’re given a chance to put on a musical and gene is obsessed with die hard as well and so he wants to be die hard and then he gets fed up with everybody and he plays every part himself he has this really cool song about hans gruber meanwhile another character is doing working girl the musical and then they end up doing a mashup and it’s pretty um awesome can you think of any other the impact of die hard or the references to die hard brooklyn nine-nine is definitely the one yeah i go to because it’s a big part of jig’s personality being that like one cop against the world and yeah you know i think a lot of people when they’re talking about other films they’ll kind of call it like oh it’s like die hard but instead it’s in like a toilet cubicle it’s become like shorthand for just seeing someone in a really tricky situation that they’re not going to get out of like one person against the whole world no question i mean it’s an interesting model what more can we throw with this guy 1988 i was trying to remember when the lethal weapon movies came out because i was wondering if to what extent does die hard tip over into pastiche because there’s just a lot throughout theaters of these really high octane very shitty very sweary very very male testosterone action movies and you’re going you know i mean i know it’s fancy and it’s a big summer blockbuster and it’s a popcorn movie and everything but seriously hi must she expecting these people to survive well and i think with die hard i think the difference might be that he’s quite keen to try and pass the book like it’s not that he’s found the situation that he’s in he’s not like okay i’m in charge of this now he’s like okay i’m gonna start the fire alarm and someone will come and then they come and they turn around he’s like okay i’m gonna radio for help and you’re ready for house and then they don’t do anything they tell them it’s a prank call and then when the police finally do come they send one officer and that guy thinks it’s fine until he has to throw a body at this man and be like please help me so it kind of is a fascination a little way i think it’s maybe a little bit different to the likes of rambo or like an arnold schwarzenegger film because he’s not doing what he’s doing for like masculinity’s sake it’s just that i’m in this situation and no one’s helping me and even when the police chief shows up and when the fbi show up they kind of make it work yeah he’s very begrudging the whole time he’s why is this happening to me i just wanted to see my family like maybe the reason so when he dresses that body up for christmas i do kind of think that a little angel shows up on his shoulder and it tells him hey you’re the main character of this film it’s the exact opposite of clarence and um it’s a wonderful life like that that character shows us he’s like don’t kill yourself it’s a really bad thing too especially at the holidays you’re a nice guy this little like cartoon angel shows up for john kind of like you’re the main character they’re definitely going to survive this let’s make it christmassy i’m trying to recall if the christmas decorations get shot up and messed up and stuff i can’t remember i think they were very pretty and very there in some of the clips i was watching yesterday but i can’t remember if how trashed does the police get it gets very trash by the end i think they’re quite like yucky and 80s about it so it’s got big what do you call the poinsettias the big red flowers oh yeah yeah they’ve got them everywhere they’ve got the big tree they’ve got like a string quartet who aren’t playing christmas music at all i mean it’s christmas eve spend time with your family don’t be here at a work holiday for something else he blows up entire floors at some point so i would assume that the santa doesn’t survive that but even then at the end there’s all of the stocks and chairs they’re kind of floating from the roof that’s just and it does look like fake snow okay so even in the sense that all the christmas decorations have been destroyed it’s still very christmasy yeah it’s the only time you will ever get snow in california is if you blow up a building basically you make it yourself it’s interesting as well the connection between new york and los angeles that’s set up and he’s very much a new york cop isn’t he in this other world and i mean there’s isn’t there a whole season of brooklyn nine-nine that’s a bit shaped because of that isn’t there you know jake and captain holt have to go into witness protection or something and they’re yes they’re out in la for half a season yeah i can’t remember if it’s la of florida oh maybe it’s florida actually no you’re right i always get yeah sorry you’re probably right all right i mean they’re both kind of comfortable please summer coastal and really sunny yeah yeah you know certainly for die hard there’s an east coast west coast advisor when he shows up he knows it’s not for him he makes a few comments like oh california it’s frustrating the lack of because in new york maybe it’s a bit of an indictment on new york or something that right well if i call if i through the fire alarm or if i did all these things somebody would come but and i’ll either just whatever it’s just a false alarm or everything’s fine what do we think of holly holly is a really interesting character i think we don’t see a great deal of her but what we do see i think is interesting so when we’re first introduced to the idea of holly we know that they’re separated we know that she has a job which is better paid than john and that’s why she’s moved to la with the children so she can pursue her career and he’s been left behind because he doesn’t want to go with he wants to stay in new york and have his job and then you see when he gets the nakatomi tower and he uses a really outdated touchscreen with the air quotes because it’s quite clearly a glass screen that someone’s just having a player video on slicker if she’s using her maiden name that way because she’s going by gennaro instead of mclean for the purposes of the pop that’s really helpful because when she introduces herself to hans gruber he knows her as janeiro so there’s no link that she’s important to this guy who’s causing so much trouble like throughout the building holly to a certain extent she like takes on the mantle of defending the hostages so she’s like you know we have a pregnant woman get her something to sit on take us to the bathroom you know she’s very protective like the rest of her colleagues and she has a certain position of power in her workplace as well like she’s instrumental in the business deal of whatever they’re celebrating the same day as christmas eve and they bought her a rolex watch to celebrate so she must be pretty good at her job but i don’t know if at the end of the film she goes back to using a married name she does have her little moment where she gets to punch the tv guy who um essentially breaks into her house and threatens her babysitter being deported so we can interview her children on air and that’s why hans gruber knows in the end that she is married to john mcclane now i think maybe in the end she has kind of settled that obviously she’s never a weird place to go back to because it’s completely destroyed she may as well just go back to her married name just well moved back to new york that’s fine so she’s an interesting character but i think maybe at the end of the film she’s maybe not the most emancipated character the opposite happens for her in a way so she had her freedom and her financial freedom her career and everything and then it all literally gets burnt to the ground pretty much yeah so um at the end hamstrup is hanging off the side of the building and the reason he’s able to hold on is because he’s attached to um holly’s rolex yeah so they have to untie it and let him go that’s the exact opposite of throwing your wedding ring away to get rid of the rolexes to return to being mrs mclean yeah it’s a really great point actually yeah because the property comes into its own and she has to sacrifice that symbol of her career and her success in her own right under her own name to save all their lives because he’s trying to pull her with him we’ll put her with him and or try and get back up i was wondering as well because like her her name gennaro i think that’s italian and you know hans gruber so there’s a german thing going on austrian german thing going on and then mclean i think is probably an irish name so he’s new york irish and um he makes freshmen um being educated in a catholic school as well as education and then nakatomi is a japanese corporation as well the guy who runs the company i thought was a really interesting thing that they added in they don’t really do a great deal with it um when hans group is trying to root him out from all the hostages to find the guy who’s in charge he’s essentially reading his wikipedia page but he mentions that he was intuited during the 1940s gosh yeah because it’s so close to it’s only 40 years after the second world war at this point and there’s some african-american representation as well so i think it feels deliberately fairly global i think usually with action films at the time you usually find that there’s like one black character and they’re kind of in charge of just speaking for their entire community with die hard there is at least four black characters who are like speaking named characters so you’ve got argyle who’s the limo driver leo is one of the terrorists he’s the the tech guy and you know he’s a tech guy because he wears glasses and then you’ve got sergeant al powell who is the la police officer on the ground he’s kind of john’s support bubble and then one of the fbi agents is black as well so there’s two fbi agents who are referred to in the credits as little johnson and big johnson people have the same name so they al probably the most significant one before when you were talking about how brooklyn nine-nine’s kind of come under a bit of scrutiny at the moment there being what’s called them copper gander which is like portraying police officers in a way which doesn’t really reflect their behaviors in the real world and there’s quite a significant plot point with al the reason he’s been on death duty of the reason he has the shift on christmas eve is because he shocked a child and he’s not really willing to be doing a full role i think he’s been on paperwork for quite a while because he’s not really willing to handle a weapon again it’s peculiar and i think it kind of shows the sign of the times during the film that his redemption is at the end he gets to shoot the last terror but i think the story he tells he does show a lot of remorse for having shot that child but i mean he has done it and i know when i was watching it most recently yesterday all i can think of was tamir rice and how he was like a young boy who was shot in ohio for just being seen with a toy gun that looked like a real gun i think it would be interesting to know why they made the decision to have that be part of the story it’s never said whether the child was black or not like al certainly is and i think if al powell’s character was white i don’t know if it’s tricky city if you were remaking the film now i don’t think they could justify having that plot point in there would have to be some other kind of this is my backstory this is why i’m not kind of up to it you know i’ve got a baby on the way i’ve taken the [ __ ] but actually i’m not comfortable handling a weapon it’s very interesting i think that very much shows that the film is and i’m rambling a lot but i think this shows that the film is of its time but if they were to remake it i don’t think they could justify having that in i don’t think you could have a character who is a good character with that background it’s really tricky but i mean in a way it’s more realistic that because you don’t really correct me if i’m wrong but i don’t know if you hear the circumstances or his side of the story is well how he ended up shooting a child was it an honest mistake is it something in the training you know i mean there’s not really space to go into and these things come up quite flippantly i find in a lot of those 80s movies i remember re-watching gremlins a few years ago it goes very dark at times you know there’s bbk yeah that kind of comes out of nowhere yeah it’s really traumatizing you know it’s really awful and it’s such a dark dark thing i’m not gonna describe it because it’s really horrific but in the middle of quite a silly christmas set horror film that’s played largely for laughs i don’t know if just somebody got the tone wrong or there was a mood for this in the 1980s and yes cinema i don’t really know what it is but there are sometimes you just go what’s that what is that they really go in there you know it’s great it really takes you back so it’s one of those i think but yes it’s difficult maybe it derails the whole the whole um point of what we’re doing but there are plenty of police officers here all kinds of colors who become i think it’s a matter of training in certain cases or people can be racist against their own kind because of propaganda and believe in stereotypes and all sorts of stuff it’s a tricky one yeah as you say like it’s really really difficult to read that one but then applying occam’s razor it’s probably the simplest thing it’s somebody who’s just a bit full hardy in the writing room one day you know there’s nothing deeper than that but yeah it’s quite a shocking thing i’m trying to remember back to seeing skyscraper you know that’s the wasn’t hugely popular it was the rock set in hong kong and i think the motivations are very i might be getting it wrong but you know it’s very capitalist you know the terrorists are capitalists you know of the highest order and they’re terrorizing other kinds of capitalists that sort of stuff yeah i think the nationalities of the people in this or at least their heritages in die hard are i don’t know if it’s just a ham-fisted way of having to think about the legacy of the second world war or something so hansgruber and even holly maybe they didn’t think that one through but you know and italians and germans well there’s resistance and it laid to be fair so maybe that holly is like the resistance fighter well and so

yeah i always forget about this some kind of he’s involved in some kind of pressure group but they don’t make a great deal of what kind of side he’s on it’s just made clear that whatever group he was affiliated with denounce him before he does what he does purely for the money that he’ll be making oh yes one of the clips i watched yesterday you know when he gives his demands for all of the terrorists he wants release and there’s the first thing he lists is five people in prison in northern ireland you know for i mean it’s the ira but they call it something else you know and then it goes on to list all these people in all these other countries it’s always a bit of a what the americans keep doing this to me things like that just make me think of the open line of all of sex in the city is your woman going you know dating is very much like the conflict in northern ireland what well maybe she’s onto something maybe it is exactly and then when i was we were watching um star trek the next generation and data talks about the unification of ireland in 2024 so we’ve got a lot to look forward to anyway that was a way rumble there well it’s all rambles is this one of your favorite films would you say film you you really love and keep going back to it’s definitely a film i can keep going back to i think because it kind of builds and builds so it’s like the first maybe 30 minutes or just kind of john in the building trying to survive by himself and it just gets bigger and bigger so then it’s john and al and the police chief and then at the fbi are involved and then it kind of goes back to just being john and making sure he can get collie out of the building okay no i think it’s really impressively made and like i say i love all the little christmas flourishes when you see dakar being killed john sees him being shot but he doesn’t see who does it which means that there’s a certain point in the film where hans and john come face to face and we know that hansa’s hands but john doesn’t know that hands of hands and alan rickman gets to do his american accent for a bit oh yes yes i think that seems amazing as well they’re shot at such bizarre angles that if you were to like tilt your head to try and get them like in line you would you would do yourself a damage because you’re like really far left for one and really far right for the other like the camera wants you to know that this is not okay this is a really dangerous situation to jump to be in normally at some point in one of these types of discussions we try and have some sort of nerdy business about cinematography and new film language and stuff and i mean in the clips i was noticing there’s a lot of wide-angle lenses there’s a lot of it bulging quite a lot and it just looking odd and there is of course the super slow motion of handscaper’s fall yes from the tar it just goes on and on and on for ages it’s a really drawn out death scene i mean and it’s not even the death because he’s very much alive when you’re seeing him and it’s just that moment of recognition drawn out so much in a way it feels like trauma porn because you’re watching somebody and it’s alan rickman of course so it’s really nuanced imagine this would have been filmed in real time him falling against the green screen and stuff and onto a crash mat and everything from a high distance but that being filmed and him capturing that nuance of oh oh oh this is happening night you know i’m not going to make this this is it so it really forces you to experience that i would say that’s something that’s much more difficult now in u.s culture post 9 11 number quite a while post-9 11 night and of course this is way way before and nobody would ever imagine that something like that would ever really happen i imagine that’s something that’s actually quite difficult for people possibly to watch certainly anybody who has who remembers you know the falling man photographs and that sort of stuff but it just the way they it cuts away and then you see it from a distance it’s more you don’t see any landing you just there’s this horrible thud on the side track and the um i think is that al and somebody else who’s in the frame of them just that reaction yeah the police chief said i hope that wasn’t a hostage yeah yeah we’ve got too late but there’s a big fall it is a very high height this is your immense mate we’re talking here i don’t know if we can mention alan rickman and christmas movies without bringing up something fairly obviously is he more of a bad guy in love actually than he is and die hard good question excellent question do you have thoughts on this do you have a debate on this i don’t know no hopefully where’s yeah i don’t know he’s pretty deplorable and uh enough actually for emma thompson she gets saying i would love to get a journey mitchell studio for christmas i don’t know what you’re complaining about you know i think in terms of die hard there’s a lot of antagonists the right words there’s a lot of bad guys who aren’t bad guys yeah but all hans gerber is the ultimate primary antagonist of the film it’s quite likeable he chats on with chicago admittedly before he shoots him in the face again going back to my favorite scene which is the list there’s a bit where he’s making a speech which is like we’ve planned everything everything’s gonna go exactly as planned and he’s just kind of helping himself to the buffet that they’ve set out at this kind of party he’s a nice guy for all that he’s not a very nice man and my gentleman that’s just because it’s played by alan rickman and you just get the vibes off him all because of the way they’ve characterized the other people in the film so you’ve got the police chief who’s very keen to say that he’s in charge when he doesn’t really know what’s going on and you’ve got the fbi guys who are really keen just to kill some terrorists they don’t mind how many hostages get in the way there’s a tv reporter who’s just looking for a story and he doesn’t care that he’s going to traumatize those children on christmas eve or support that nice babysitter that may be their motivation you can’t really abide with them in any way whereas with hands he’s still i don’t know if it is just the alan rickman side of things or maybe there is something a little bit more that he’s very charming admit he’s just after money but there’s something there there’s a vibe there i think that’s the way i’m gonna use there’s a vibe even though he’s deplorable he’s still likeable and that can’t be said for some of the other characters in the film and i think that’s peculiar but i think if you have like say 10 people watched the film you were like oh what do you think panther but they were like i kind of like him i think everyone would have that reaction whereas if you were like and what if you think of the fbi guys they were like they’re the way i wonder if it’s something there’s a point where holly calls him a common thief and he makes a point to get in her face and say that i’m an exceptional thing if there’s something about being confident at your job that makes you a bit more likeable than than the others i wonder if there’s something in my life he certainly enjoys it i mean he’s not that good at it because like yeah definitely charming and polite thoughtful contemplative good with words the film makes reference that he has a classical education yeah he’s like a really nice boot and you know he’s doing a lot of this in his second language yeah and he’s sing it until a point because he’s got this gremlin that is happening if it wasn’t for john mclean it would have gone dead smooth but he had the scrappy new york cop who in no time at all gets in their vest and in no time she always loses the face is the best yeah and it’s just blood everywhere i mean he’s really good john gets really caught up to his face really really are you even free that at this point when he’s on the roof and they’re gonna blow the roof and he’s trying to get that oh my goodness he’s trying to get there i mean this was nearly copied almost shot for shot and skyscraper but in a higher tech environment you know when he gets the fire hose and manages to string himself up to it and he just gets lucky he just gets lucky because this thing totally comes off the wall and it just gets hooked briefly on something long enough for him to hang there for a minute i mean he’s so bloodied that he bangs against the window and there’s a big splodge of blood on the window a big part of die hard is how unlucky can you be with how lucky you are because it is that he gets off the roof just in time his feet are cut up with glass by this point you have to boot open a window to swing back in yeah and then the wheel that holds the fireman’s hose falls out the window and takes him with it just to quickly untie himself just like how much seriously do you have to be on after you go through an experience like that i know it’s not for me yeah he said eating ribbons there’s nothing left of him by the end of it it does get very similar in skyscraper it’s a real homage to it i think where the rock just keep on the you know the rock he’s playing a guy who is an amputee he’s using his leg the prosthetic leg to do a lot of so you’re like that leg would not even high-tech as it is this thing is shot to pieces i mean there’s nothing left there’s nothing left of his body there’s nothing left of his preset i mean how even function at this point it’s this idea of the non-super superhero they just keep going and it’s that drive to survive at all costs and yet the bad guys are just dying really you relatively easily yeah i was just thinking actually that idea of luck as it was travel later the move and floor you know there’s one there’s a bit where oh there’s guys have been painting and all the scaffoldings around everywhere one of the bad guy one of the terrorists is coming for him and john turns the travelator on so the gun comes towards him because he’s lying there and he’s trapped under a scaffolding thing that’s fallen you know he’s pulling the gun towards him to shoot the guy am i getting that right to be honest i don’t remember that bit but it sounds great maybe a die-hard tear or something and i watched the wrong thing yeah because you actually get that in an airport so it would make sense that they have one of those that’s what it is i was wondering why there was a travel later but again that goes back to being like how long can you be with being lucky that he’s been through four of these films do you have to get at these situations in the first place like desperate how did you do in a past life because it’s so unlucky but as you say he just things just work out somehow for him and it’s not the power of christmas who knows he knows i’m trying to remember because i think die hard 2 is definitely set at christmas i think i heard with a vengeance with sam l that one is new york isn’t it and i’m going to be honest i’ve only seen one in two oh really i have seen four four point zero is pretty pants as far as i remember it was just exploding explode exploded to the point where i’m actually bored of explosions now a wee bit of a plot would be nice that’s as much as i remember 4.0 but i heard with vengeance it’s not as good as the first shoe but it’s kind of fun and i think that one’s not set at christmas no christmas but samuel l jackson so you know things balance out in the universe if i’m remembering that right it’s been a while i used to really watch these films a lot and i just can’t even remember it very well from two years ago that’s where we are these days just remember the explosion something you definitely blew off that’s what’s always going to remember something always blows up at some point because i remember a helicopter i think blowing up and 4.0 that’s about all i can remember i think justin long is of that one i only know who he is because he’s in a really obscure comedy called ed that i really liked there we go that’s how cool you know justin long from that’s all you know just in line what do you know from do you know him gina what’s the end where’s the new girl he’s been accepted i don’t say knows but i like him what other things do we have to say about die hard there must be loads of stuff do you think it’s a christmas one i definitely did about 10 years ago i haven’t really seen much reason to change my mind about that it’s definitely a film i enjoy watching in december because i think it is the appropriate time to watch it i think it’s weird watching stuff that has festive things in it and chris’s decorations in it in july it’s just normal i couldn’t imagine like being being like really sunny and then just going into a dark cinema watching a film which is so much about christmas and then coming out and it’s still being sunny like to have seen that on like the 15th of july dude it doesn’t make sense definitely a blockbuster i get why it was a summer release more than it is a smarty christmas film when you come away with a woman fuzzy but so much of the things in the background or christmas eve will always be like pencil or a tree or like a little santa or something and like i say there’s like two bugendo scenes where john like specifically makes a decision to make something christmasy you know it’s a peculiar one i get why people think it is in the christmas film i think a lot of that reasoning was just that well it was released in july and they didn’t want it to be a big c christmas film but it feels christmas evening once more christmas season like surviving something horrible aka 2020 yeah and getting to the end and having presents and seeing family and not dying fingers crossed i mean i think a lot of us if we watched it properly at this point of this year feel a bit like john mcclane yeah it just gets worse because you just feel like you’re surviving but you’ve got all these cuts and injuries and you’re tired and your feet hurt and your clothes have been torn off and you’re angry at the world squeeze through an air then you’ve fallen off a building but on the plus side your wife not yet ex-wife she’s lost the child’s care because of the thing and so she’s gonna need somebody to help with some child care so you may as well stick around and it’s not nice you’d be useful for your kids for a change there’s always a silver lining are there other films that you think are quite festive films that aren’t typically or that there’s a question mark over i’m trying to think if there’s any others that are in this ambiguous category good question no i feel like the ones i would go to are like stamped christmas songs like the grinch is a big one for me okay christmas carol like yeah well it couldn’t be more christmas if it tried kind of thing yeah but again that would be an argument for die hard being a christmas film that is specifically sat on christmas eve and it’s got this build up on the silver to this thing the same way that like i think it’s a wonderful life all takes place on christmas eve where he’s deciding whether he should commit suicide or not christmas carol any variation of his all set on christmas eve where someone has this big realization and everything’s different in the morning i think the same could be said for die hard that john comes into la on christmas eve doesn’t have a wife hasn’t seen his kids in six months he’s wearing a shirt and then once midnight here it’s christmas day his wife’s using his surname again he’ll be able to see his kid he doesn’t have a shirt or shoes but christmas miracle got the family back and heteronormativity is restored that’s always the important thing is that the heteronormative relationship and the 2.4 kids is restored and all is right with the world if your wife has a job and she doesn’t want to quit you just blow up that building you did that’s the solution you just get that building done get rid get some terrorists in kill a bunch of folk chris’s miracle all by your own hands all by accident one of my i call it a guilty pleasure and then i correct myself because i think you know what no it’s just a pleasure i shouldn’t feel guilty about it is while you were sleeping i haven’t seen it for years yeah i love while you were sleeping and i can’t explain why and there’s just something very special and warm about sandra bullock and bill pullman in a movie together it’s perfect bath does have christmas themes as well doesn’t it because she’s orphans and she always spends christmas by herself that’s why she has that shift where she saves him yeah and then it’s one of those films where like christmas for them seems to last at least two months it must be christmas eve when he falls onto the tracks and then she spends the festive period with his family while he’s still in a coma they have this prolonged christmas because yes the accident happens around that time so they don’t celebrate christmas everything’s left as it was and so it runs into the new year i think so there’s that whole christmas week and then the new year’s party and everything and everything all happens it seems within a couple of weeks it’s just a little fairy tale but you know i suppose it’s like the snow globe analogy that’s in the film it’s all contained in this little fantasy snow glo you know a little contained tiny world and it gets stirred up a bit and then it all settles you know it’s just it’s a perfectly thing i love it i haven’t seen it for a long long time i do love it i think if you go back to it you’ll probably see some um probably have problems with it because that’s the way everything is these days yeah there’s the creepy neighbor but he’s quite sweet in his own way but that’s that’s the problem isn’t it it’s that weird in his defense he hasn’t look into the lives of a family of a coma victim claiming to be the fiance so in glass houses throw down sandra bullock yeah yeah i mean at least your man is very very honest about everything that is a very good point it’s almost like of the screw ball tradition where somebody accidentally gets thrown into a situation and even though they’ve tried to tell the truth because i feel like she tries to tell the truth and that again it’s that thing if you’re just going to keep the encounter in this bad luck where it’s going to go wrong and you’re going to try and tell the truth people are going to make assumptions you’re either not going to be able to correct them or there’s no opportunity to correct them so they then believe it and then it looks like you’ve lied about everything because that happens a few times here and it’s very stressful but it’s also really sweet as a little self-contained fantasy and it’s a bit of a love letter to chicago as well which is nice because i don’t think it gets a lot of those kinds of positive views of itself that’s a whole other ramble probably about a teenage obsession with er and really wanting to go on those l trains those elevated trend lines anyway i’ve got a degree in that i mean recently so it’s all about fairy tale all about harry potter oh okay where is it set then is it the owl yeah okay well that was frasier for me growing up in seattle and it was your fairy boots because why would he lower himself so exactly yeah probably has like a fate do we have anything more that’s useful or any in to say about die hard i can say many a name thing yeah i need to rewatch the whole thing again properly i would definitely recommend it yeah watch it tonight or tomorrow and we’ll meet back up and i can get your opinions on well i always enjoyed it as a younger person i think these days i’m too tired i see something out and it’s exhausting just watching clips of a gesture school for goodness sake really it’s just an effort to sit here and see this guy going through all this stuff intense i am i think the bob’s burgers version is very much my vibe these days

alien

yes you’re absolutely right it’s an episode where linda gets sick and she can’t go and see the kids performing oh yeah so they all tell lies about what happened they embellish what happened and tina’s story is based on alien yeah well remembered i do love love’s burgers i have to say but yeah they do great pastation you know they do a whole riff on um spaghetti westerns to do a jaws thing too yeah is it called the happening is that what it’s called is it the deepening this is something that’s what it is something along those lines yeah loads of stuff like that there’s rashaman type episodes as well where they’re all telling the different versions of the same thing it’s a good show so i guess that’s everybody’s homework then is stay safe and die hard please don’t die please don’t die don’t die in any way there’s been too much of that this year well christy thanks very much for doing this i hope it was fun i hope it’s fun to listen to if anybody but you don’t have fun editing it and getting rid of all my ooms and oh no that’s not what i mean you’ll edit it down you’re like it’s a good five minutes it’s just a solid five minutes good content well this has been a bit of fun and normalish service will resume in january but for now we’re just having a bit of fun a bit of crack on body visual cultures so thanks christy and thanks everybody else for joining thank you this has been a cozy peapod production with me paula blair the music is common ground by airton used under a creative commons 3.0 non-commercial license and is downloadable from ccmixter.org episodes release every other wednesday subscribe on apple podcasts spotify amazon music or wherever you find your podcasts see the show notes for a video link if you need auto captions be part of the conversation with avcultures on facebook and twitter or avculturespod on instagram as well as patreon membership one-off support is appreciated at buymeacoffee.com forward slash pea blair i produce and edit the show by myself and i am grateful for any support for this work for more information and episode links visit audiovisualcultures.wordpress.com thank you so much for listening catch you next time