Die Hard

Wednesday

John Ehrett

Violent Night is more than just Christmas carnage

The pitch meeting for Violent Night must have been fun: why not make a big-budget film where Santa Claus himself (David Harbour) must protect a spoiled rich family from a home invasion? It might even settle the age-old debate about whether Die Hard is a Christmas movie: this is what a Die Hard-style Christmas really looks like! Violent Night largely delivers on that premise, serving up high-octane holiday mayhem for the grownup set. Here, we get a disenchanted (and borderline alcoholic) Kris Kringle, who’s grown tired of modern kids requesting only cash and video games and is contemplating hanging up his hat. We’re a long way from the jovial protagonist of The Santa Clause or even the crankier iteration of Elf. Years of munching Christmas cookies haven’t made this Santa soft.

Wednesday

Alexander Larman

Alan Rickman and the misery of being famous

Perhaps the defining moment of the posthumous collection of diary excerpts from the late actor and director Alan Rickman comes around two thirds of the way in. Rickman has recently played the villainous role of Judge Turpin in Tim Burton’s Sweeney Todd, an undertaking he describes with what readers will have come to recognize as his signature combination of angst and actorly obsession ("I can only sense the crumbs, dandruff, dirt under the nails.") At last, the film is finished, and is premiering in London. Rickman’s general mien of detachment ("there is a deep introspection during these days…a feeling of being marginalized by shallow minds") is temporarily interrupted by an impertinent journalist, who asks him at the premiere, "If you were a pie, which flavor would you be?

Friday

Alexander Larman

The problem with Christmas movies

The first time I saw Love, Actually was upon its release in 2003. I thought it was generally fine, with good and bad bits jostling alongside one another, and scene-stealing performances by Bill Nighy and Emma Thompson going a long way to counteracting the dreadfulness of some of the supporting cast and general Richard Curtis-ness of it all. But what I was unprepared for was that it would go from being a reasonably enjoyable portmanteau rom-com into a film that epitomizes "the contemporary spirit of Christmas," or some such rubbish. Every year, it becomes ever more ubiquitous, whether on streaming platforms, television or even in theater re-releases. And every year, something inside me dies a little harder.