Season’s Greetings

For many of us, Christmas is a complex juggling act. There are hyperactive kids; underactive and surly teens; aging and failing parents and grandparents; and relatives that come but once a year (thank God). Then there’s the logistics of running a small commercial restaurant out of a family kitchen that was definitely not designed for this. People need to be transported to and fro. Presents chosen, purchased, and wrapped. Entertainments must be provided with a smile.

All around you is the crushing expectation of manufactured joy.

If this experience can sometimes feel like walking barefoot across broken glass for your family, then obviously you are going to think that Die Hard is a Christmas movie.

John Mcclane is just regular guy (not a pumped up steroidal monster like Ahnuld) who wants to see his family. Hans Gruber is every burnt potato, every traffic jam, every snide comment exchanged for an unwanted gift, every inebriated relative telling you how it is.

It doesn’t hurt that Die Hard’s director was the smartest choreographer of 80s action, sass, and excess. It doesn’t hurt that Die Hard’s manic violence and profanity provide a welcome contrast to saccharine kids movies and rom coms that everyone else likes. It doesn’t hurt that for many of us, this was a formative childhood experience.

But most of all, Nakatomi Plaza provides us with a graphic representation of the psychic arena of the family Christmas.

And a Yippee ki-yay to one and all.