I have the tendency of getting very physical, so watch your step cause if I do you'll need a miracle

[leia131]

We watched Die Hard the other day, because (guess what) I'd never seen it. And, even though I don't usually like action movies all that much, I think I kind of love Die Hard. Like, I totally understand why other people love this movie, and why it's a ~thing~ and why they've made 100 sequels.


The best part about Die Hard, in my opinion, is that Bruce Willis still has hair doesn't do everything right the first time. He screws up, he panics, he bleeds (A LOT), he wonders what's the right thing to do, he questions his decisions, and he never does get a pair of shoes. I LOVE that the guy he tries to steal shoes from has feet that are too small; it's the little details like that that really separate Die Hard from a lot of other action movies. It has far fewer cliches than I expected in such an old and definitive movie, and yet still enough to fit into the genre. Plus, people ran out of bullets, the lack of which is a major pet peeve of mine in most action movies.

It was also interesting to me that this movie had more racial diversity than many movies we make nowadays. And they didn't make any jokes or references to the hacker or the limo driver or the cop being African American. They just were, the same way some other people were white or Japanese. There was also a surprising lack of sexism; there was never any suggestion that McClane's wife leaving NY to pursue a career on the West Coast as a high level exec was wrong in any way. Rather, McClane refusing to support this and being selfish was the problem. Bless you, Die Hard.

Finally, I can see why they cast Alan Rickman as Hans Gruber; he's excellent in the part. But, another pet peeve of mine, I was never sure if he was trying for a full-on German accent, just trying to get rid of his British accent, or playing a German man who spoke English with a British accent. They should have just let him use his natural accent, and said that he learned English from a British school, because the way his accent fluctuated when he talked was really cringe-inducing.


Final Verdict: I now want to see ALL THE DIE HARDS. <3




Answer to last Monday's song: Be My Baby, by The Ronettes. becofoz got this one right!

Comments

[bizarrevictoria.livejournal.com]

I agree with everything you said. Die Hard was, as strange as it may sound to say, a genuinely GOOD movie and a movie ahead of its time.

One quick thing about Alan Rickman's accent--that level of fluctuation is actually quite natural in ESL people, especially ones who have grown up in Europe and therefore learned British English, probably at an international school. I've met loads of people who will speak English almost perfectly with a lovely British accent, but every now and then a word or sentence will be said in their native accent. It has to do more with either the rare phrase that they never learned how to say in "English" English, so they do the best they can with their natural accent, or if they let their guard down and stop trying. It'd be interesting to watch Die Hard and track Alan Rickman's accent and see if he slips more into a German accent when he's distracted by more important things or is just talking privately with his German cronies and doesn't feel the need to show off.

This is also why his perfect American accent when he's faking being an employee with McClane doesn't bother me--he's probably quite good at accents and is trying very, very actively to sound American in that instance.

Although this may be giving WAY more credit to the film and Alan Rickman than was probably intentional. Rickman probably just couldn't do a steady German accent and bounced between the two.

[leia131.livejournal.com]

It was just so good! Like, I don't usually think of action movies as being actually quality (I mean, I just re-watched Speed this past weekend, and it was entertaining but not exactly what I'd call good) but this one was.

I am super intrigued by the possibility that Rickman was doing it on purpose. He's just good enough that I would believe it.