I remember convincing my mom to watch this one year over Christmas because she actually knew Michael Kamen pretty well. But she also generally hates violent and/or bloody stuff. Not so with Die Hard. She loved it and kept yelling out little things like "oh good" when the guys got shot in the head or hung.. but she also loved the movie and Alan Rickman especially and had this "noooooooo" look when this happened.

The sequels (the ones I've seen, anyway) weren't bad, but the original Diehard has got to be the best action movie I've ever seen. The machine guns, explosions, breaking glass and falling bodies are great, but the real attraction is John McLean and Hans Gruber, playing chess with live Ammo, the initiative moving back and forth. It certainly is a great script, TJS. It wouldn't be hard for any decent actor to move beyond sleaze and violence with a script like that, but Alan Rickman treated those memorable lines with all the wit and elegance they deserved. I can't remember the name of the villain Dennis Hopper played in Speed, but we all remember Hans Gruber.

As wonderful as he was as a villain, I'm glad that in his later career he had the chance to play some comic roles. He was wonderful in "Dogma" and "Galaxy Quest."

Huh. My mom also makes a Die Hard exception to her usual dislike of violent movies, and at Christmas she often asks to see "the one where he blows up the jet with a zippo." Do all moms like Die Hard?

I think so! My mom says the same thing, "the one where he gets stabbed in the eye with an icicle". But she freaks out when I try to get her to watch The Knick when I'm over. Ultimate Mom Movie.

I actually liked all of the sequels except for the 5th one: The fourth one in particular, if you can find the unrated one is actually pretty nerdily funny, and John takes down a fighter jet with his bare hands, if I remember. The PG13 cut sucked though; yippiekayyay mo.......... is no fun! Also John scalps someone in the hacker's house in the unrated version! Die Hard 5 had as good of a premise as any DH movie could; now he's in Russia and wait he had a son? It brought back the R-rated violence and cussin of the first 3, but it just wasn't fun for me. But here's to Die Hard 6 In Space!

I only saw the fourth one in theatres, and I guess it was the PG-13 edit. I didn't actually know there was another cut out there. I'll have to check that out. Y'know, I did like Die Hard 3 quite a bit because it entered this weird children's-story realm with the riddles and robbing Fort Knox, and the bomb-squad getting sprayed with maple syrup. But the villain is less memorable than Dennis Hopper in Speed.

The Die Hard 2 was real bad, though. Probably the blandest villain this side of a Marvel production, and Bruce doesn't even get good quips. "Tell me something, Lorenzo. What sets off the metal detectors first: the lead in your ass or the shit in your brains?"

SHIT DOESN'T SET OFF--oh, forget it.