I dug through my archives and checked: somehow this blog has existed for eleven years and I’ve never mentioned the original Die Hard is my all-time favorite movie. Previously on Midlife Crisis Crossover, against my better judgment I subjected myself to the fifth, final, worst entry in the series. Later that same year I tried a new angle on an exhausted joke by presenting my argument that Die Hard 2 is a Christmas movie — in some respects more Christmassy than the first one. But I’ve never simply devoted an entry to the one that started it all and begat an entire subgenre: “Action Films That Are Die Hard on/in a Something”.

At long last I have an excuse to bring it up: two weeks ago the powers-that-be at Fox put it back in theaters just in time for the Christmas season, presumably to celebrate its 35½th birthday in January. I almost never attend repertory showings of films that I could rent or buy. Not counting Disney re-releases during my childhood, my complete Every Repertory Showing Ever adulthood list is short: Aliens, My Fair Lady, Hitchcock’s Mr. and Mrs. Smith, North by Northwest, and Mystery Science Theater 3000: The Movie. Also, I attended all of those in the 20th century. Now I can add an old film this century: DIE HARD.

Years ago I read a Comics Buyer’s Guide essay by TV/comics writer Mark Evanier in which he ruminated on how many times he’d bought Goldfinger on home video. Every time a new format was invented, or a new set was released with different features, he was there for it. I’m sure other film fans have their own personal Goldfinger that requires a new purchase of every possible upgrade. I never forgot that essay throughout the years as Die Hard became my Goldfinger.

To this day I don’t know why I didn’t see it in its initial theatrical release despite the tantalizing promise of “127 BLAZING MINUTES OF NONSTOP EXCITEMENT ALL IN 70MM SIX-TRACK DOLBY STEREO THAT WILL BLOW YOU OUT THE BACK WALL OF THE THEATER!” Circa 1989 when our section-8 family could finally afford a VCR — about a year before we could afford our first color TV set — it was one of the first movies I recorded off cable TV, at EP speed on the same blank VHS tape as Spike Lee’s School Daze. Our picture quality was terrible. The ’80s pan-and-scan butchery of its original, proudly widescreen format was appalling. I couldn’t crank it to volume 11 and blow myself out the back wall of our townhouse because it would’ve made Grandma mad and/or the neighbors might complain to the landlord. Nevertheless, in those days we got used to lots of everyday entertainment limitations and compromises. I loved Die Hard anyway.

I skipped the original VHS release because, hey, I already had my own copy (thanks, TDK!), but purchased it for the first time some years later when Suncoast Video opened in the nearest mall and stocked it in their very special section of letterboxed VHS releases, which were quite the artisanal curios of their day. By then we graduated to color TV and I didn’t care about the black bars. I could finally see a small-screen version of every scene as originally intended, with no picture ends lopped off and with no scenes squished to fit into the frame. As the 21st century came around, I upgraded to DVD and relished the treasure trove of extras, up to and including the spoken and text-only commentaries that pointed out details I hadn’t noticed before. Inevitably I upgraded to Blu-ray when Fox released the first four films in a single pack, value-priced yet further improved in sound and picture quality, and tossed in a couple more extras. As of this writing I’ve yet to move on to the 2018 4K do-over, but that’s inevitable.

I’ve seen DIE HARD more times than any other film (even more than Airplane!, Ghostbusters, and any Star War), but I’d never seen it in theaters till now. I was so excited to see My All-Time Favorite Movie on the big screen that I paid extra for an AMC Dolby Cinema screening with all the fancy A/V boosts that their other screens could desperately use if AMC were truly serious about competing with home video. I even went on a Friday night — an extreme rarity I indulge in maybe once every 20-25 years. Due to a combination of personal fervor and our hectic holiday schedule, I showed up Friday night with about ten or twelve other attendees. I came solo due to family disinterest, but sometimes it’s nice knowing I’m not alone.

The reasons I’ve loved the film are many, and surely redundant with every other glowing Die Hard essay ever — sadly excluding another old favorite of mine, Roger Ebert, whose two-star pan mostly griped about what he interpreted as Idiot Plot contrivances. For me all those incompetent officials who’re supposed to be doing good but aren’t (Paul Gleason’s bully who turns yes-man when the Feds show; the impatient 911 supervisor two years ahead of Flavor Flav’s takedown of her ilk; the cocksure FBI guys who think no one’s read their playbook; the manly-man hero-squad that pricks their fingers on the thorny bushes outside, then wastes time trying and failing to lock-pick glass doors) are one of the film’s recurring motifs and entire satirical points. An outsider cop shouldn’t be necessary, yet here they are, ceding their jobs to spindly wisecracker David Addison, who was in search of new challenges after Moonlighting jumped the shark and not long before it was canceled.

Once again I found details I hadn’t noticed or appreciated before — some caught thanks to the big-screen treatment and some because, well, new things pop out with every viewing:

* How cinematographer Jan de Bont welcomes Detective John McClane to California by surrounding his limo with a smoggy L.A. sunset, whose ugly haze gradually darkens as we await the mayhem to come.

* A more generous view of the courtyard outside Nakatomi Plaza, where Theo and Karl’s car is still parked in later scenes.

* Acting nuances writ much larger, such as when James Shigeta introduces Our Hero to cokehead toady Ellis and gently emphasizes, “He’s a policeman.” Takagi knows Ellis has a problem, but of course this is neither the time nor place for intervention. It’s Christmas! And they have company! Who could complicate matters and/or frighten shareholders if he blows the whistle!

* The continuity error with the touchscreen directory auto-changing Holly’s maiden name from “GENNARO” to “GENNERO” is more glaring than ever. Those were the early days of touchscreens, when they were a novelty found only at our local public libraries, where they replaced the old card catalogs with gloriously green-and-white graphics and often took a few pokes to respond.

* All the product-placement logos are blatantly more legible, especially at the convenience store and in Al Leong’s concession-stand raid.

* Takagi’s Indonesian bridge-project diorama is much easier to make out. Some creative crew member put a lot of unappreciated work into setting up all those small parts for the sake of a unique backdrop for Takagi’s murder.

* Oddly, spotting the main actors’ stunt doubles was easier for me on the small screen.

* Did you know the bulky, ponytailed German who mans the rocket launcher and keeps blasting the police RV was also Vigo the Carpathian in Ghostbusters 2? I did not know this.

* Yes, all the arsenals and artillery were deafeningly loud, which is an awesome sensation for those of us who sometimes don’t hear so great in ordinary settings and/or who aren’t allowed to crank up the TV to the max at home because they live with others and have to be considerate. And yes, the rooftop explosion was more exhilarating than I’m used to. But the absolute pinnacle of its sound design is the firefight on the cubicle-filled floor where glass walls are everywhere and Hans is hissing at Karl, “Schiess den Fenster!” even though in junior high German class they taught us “Fenster” means “window” and it’s singular. Seemingly thousands of bullets shred their surroundings into billions of glass shards and specks, and their individual cracking and shattering and torrential cascades reverberated everywhere around the theater — an intense, all-consuming Hall of Mirrors apocalypse.

* Granted, the C4 elevator shaft detonation was also quite the thunderous spectacle, but how did that near-nuclear blast not take out Argyle? Did the basement parking garage double as the company’s fallout bunker?

* More than enough has been written about Alan Rickman’s Best Villain Ever, Hans Gruber, the classy yet unwitting member of a species hunted to near extinction today: a studious magazine subscriber. If only he’d bided more time, he could’ve made a healthy paycheck as a Publishers Clearing House spokesman, saved up and still luxuriated on a European beach earning 20%.

* How ill-tempered is Hans? When Bonnie Bedelia’s Holly summons the courage to step up to the head “terrorist”(before the final act reduces her to a Concerned Wife and Damsel in Distress) and asks him for comfier accommodations for her pregnant coworker, he agrees to a compromise…yet is otherwise unaffected. Part of his master plan is that every last hostage must die, including the pregnant woman and her unborn child. At no point do his eyes bug out in shock as he jumps on the radio and calls the whole thing off, exclaiming in a suddenly moral panic, “Gentlemen, we all want to be filthy rich, but we just can’t kill a baby!” Nope, far as he’s concerned, part of the price of that $600 million heist is that she and her baby are doomed. He just doesn’t care! He’s that stone cold!

* The best performance of Bruce Willis’ life makes one grieve his current state all the more. That really, really sucks.

* No, there’s still no scene after the DIE HARD end credits, but they contain my all-time favorite musical finale, the late Michael Kamen’s triumphant take on Beethoven’s “Ode to Joy”. I feel a little verklempt every time I hear it. At theatrical volume…wow, did my heart swell and swoon as the trumpets and woodwinds and drums pummeled away in unison long after the choir couldn’t take it any more.

I could go on, but you get the idea. I can’t rewatch every film I’ve ever seen. Frankly, I rarely rewatch any films nowadays because I’d rather use my free time getting to at least a few of the tens of thousands of films I’ve never seen once before I die. But I’m glad I had the chance to do so with DIE HARD, even if I had no plans to write one of my typically overlong reviews. It’s also cool (albeit uncomplimentary to the December 2023 release slate) that DIE HARD came in 15th place in its grand reopening weekend’s box office, sandwiched between the art-house tours of Saltburn and The Holdovers. That’s not too shabby for a venerated action staple. It’s nice knowing I’m not alone on a somewhat more national level, either.

Minor housekeeping coda: as to the debate over whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie, my answer for the past several years has been I DON’T CARE. That gag was funny for about six minutes. I was around for its gestation and circulation, but now whenever it rears up every December, I recoil and find other places to be. As pointless geek pastimes go, it’s right down there with endlessly debating who’s stronger, Superman or the Hulk. I enjoy some forms of repetition far more than others…such as, say, experiencing DIE HARD in all the formats.