Month: December 2021

Die Hard

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Below you will find written and video materials to supplement your experience with this film. Be aware that some essays and video essays may contain spoilers.

Critical Essays

Die Hard: 5 Reasons It’s The Greatest Action Movie Ever Made (Screen Rant)

Story Structure Analysis: Die Hard (6 Act Structure)

Die Hard movie review & film summary (Roger Ebert)

Die Hard humanized (and perfected) the action movie (AV Club)

Die Hard: Deconstructing 1980s Onscreen Masculinity (Film Archive)

Why Hans Gruber Remains the Greatest Action Movie Villain of All Time (Den of Geek)

7 Things That Don’t Make Sense About Die Hard (Cinema Blend)

Contextual Reading

Action Movies | The SilverScreen Analysis

Hollywood Action Hero – TV Tropes

Fox Plaza – The Architectural Star of ‘Die Hard’

Keane, Stephen. Disaster Movies: The Cinema of Catastrophe

Videos

DIE HARD

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Our next film is Die Hard (1988), directed by John McTiernan.

Happy Holidays film club friends! As our final movie for the semester, we’ve decided to do a live Twitter watch party for the 1988 “holiday classic” (argue amongst yourselves) Die Hard, starring Bruce Willis and Alan Rickman.

For the uninitiated, Die Hard is a classic action film, originally based on the 1979 novel Nothing Lasts Forever by Roderick Thorp. The story follows NYC police detective John McClane (Willis) as he becomes caught up in a terrorist takeover of a skyscraper in Los Angeles.

Die Hard has become the quintessential American action movie while also subverting traditional tropes, tempering action and suspense with fun, humor, and compelling characters. In 2017 Die Hard was selected by the Library of Congress for preservation in the National Film Registry.

We will watch Die Hard collectively on December 8th at 8:00pm EDT and chat on Twitter during the viewing. So how does this work exactly? At 8:00 everyone hits play on the movie and Tweets along using hashtag #SPSWatchParty. Die Hard is available for streaming on Amazon Prime and Peacock, or it can be rented on Apple TV and Google Play. And don’t forget to check out the resources page for extra essays and videos!