20th Century Fox has released a new trailer of an old movie, to prove a point and advertise (what else?) a box set. The trailer is for Die Hard (a franchise that did not die hard, but softly, slowly and gasping for air) and the video calls it "the greatest Christmas story." Not just movie, story. That means that it's better than the story of Santa Claus, or the story of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer, or Frosty The Snow Man or The Nutcracker....the list goes on.
Such a grand claim shows, at the very least, an absurd amount of confidence in the merits of a 1980s action movie starring Bruce Willis with hair, and this confidence has to come from somewhere. Maybe it's the scene where Bruce Willis, on the advice of his neighbour on the plane, takes off his socks and scrunches his toes on the carpet of a fancy office bathroom, the perfect release. There's no other scene in a Christmas story that evokes so well the simple pleasures, which is what Christmas is supposed to be all about. Leaving aside anything about Christ parallels, let's focus on the late Alan Rickman. If there's any way to justify Die Hard as "greatest Christmas story" it's through him: he is the greatest Christmas villain. Be it holding hostages at a Christmas party or giving his wife a shitty Joni Mitchell CD, the man is the baddest. Watch the new Die Hard trailer below: