Dec 25, 2018
If you're going to talk Die Hard, you cannot avoid the meme/debate over whether or not it's a Christmas movie. We discuss why it is (and okay, a few reasons why not), but more importantly, why we care about the question in the first place. What does Christmas mean to us, and how do pop culture traditions factor in? Let...
Dec 10, 2018
Almost a decade before there was Die Hard, there was Nothing Lasts Forever. While it sounds like a lost James Bond film, it's actually the book that Die Hard was based on. That's right – Die Hard was based on a book. Roderick Thorp was a crime novelist who met success with 1966's The Detective, which first spawned a...
Nov 22, 2018
Holly Gennaro McClane: portrayed in Die Hard by Bonnie Bedelia, John McClane's estranged wife reflects the conflicts and contradictions facing women at the time the film was made – and even still today. She's a working woman, a mother, and a wife. But there’s no consensus on whether she’s also a damsel...
Oct 16, 2018
The high-quality talent of the team that brought Die Hard to the screen is well-recognized. But to many, the secret ingredient to the movie's success was Bruce Willis and his portrayal of John McClane, an everyman police officer from New York, trapped in Nakatomi Tower at exactly the wrong time – and without even...
Sep 20, 2018
Every film is both a product of its environment, and a rebellion against it. Artists (and audiences) search for something new and fresh, but cannot escape the world as it exists around them. Die Hard is no exception. While Die Hard is often marked as a turning point in American action cinema, we must first look at the...