The Setup:
We’ve watched a lot of bad movies at Munch this year. We saw a 90-minute Syfy original movie about sharks and tornadoes. We watched Carrot Top run a company into the ground. We even sat through two Nic Cage movies (although we didn’t write posts for those, sorry!).
For the final movie of the year, we were feeling the Christmas spirit and decided to treat ourselves to a halfway decent film. After some debate, we decided on Die Hard because none of us had seen it in its entirety and at nearly a quarter of a century into our lives have gotten tired of hearing, “You’ve never seen Die Hard? What?” from everyone who brings up Die Hard references that we didn’t get (looking at you Shelby and Casey). On top of that, we were lucky that it can be considered a Christmas movie! Yes, we are weighing in on this Internet debate and, as of writing this, place ourselves firmly in the “Yeah, that is totally a Christmas film!” camp. With that, let’s just say we were all glad we watched Die Hard, because now we fully appreciate what we were missing out on.
The Dinner:
One of the best parts of watching Die Hard was that there were so many food puns to be had. The obvious choice for dinner was Dyed Hard Shell Tacos, since we at Munch firmly believe that Bruce Willis is a taco man. We went to the store and bought the most clearly dyed hard taco shells. This was difficult for us, since we usually like to cook with whole foods from scratch whenever possible, and the only dyed shells were Kroger “Nacho Cheese” Hard Shell Tacos. They had a pretty demanding flavor. Imagine eating a taco in an XXL Nacho Cheese Dorito, and then trying to taste any other flavor over the top of that. We tried to think of it as a homemade Doritos Locos Taco, but nothing could save us from the intensity of that artificial nacho cheese.
Heated to… well, not quite perfection. They were barely edible at any temperature.
The natural companion for Dyed Hard Shell Tacos is Dyed Hard Lemonade. To fill that requirement we went with Mike’s Hard Cranberry Lemonade because Christmas and cranberries go hand in hand. When we all had our first sip we had a collective, “Oh, that’s actually not bad!” moment, but everyone stopped drinking them at some point in the middle of their second one because there’s only so much unnaturally colored alcoholic sugar water you’re able to consume in one sitting.
Arguably, the best part of drinking Mike’s was the “mikesisms” that came on every bottle. We had a little too much fun with those.
“Birds of a feather #DieHard together.” #mikesisms @mhl
— Munch (@getmunchedup)
We followed the Dyed Hard Shell Tacos with some delicious, Christmas themed, red and green Dyed Hard Boiled Eggs with a little bit of paprika sprinkled on top. Not a typical paring, we know, but by this point you should be able to tell what the common theme of the dinner was.
You know what they say: you can’t make eggs without breaking a few eggs. Otherwise, they’d call it easy boiled eggs.
For dessert, we made some Dyed Hard Candy which we then smashed and sprinkled over whipped cream and a hard chocolate shell over some delicious homemade, peanut butter ice cream. The Dyed Hard Candy was loosely meant to look like the glass after McClane walks over it barefoot: broken, bloody, and all over everywhere. Mission accomplished.
The Drinks:
To accompany the movie, we had a Dyed Hard Cider with Fireball, dyed in-house. Some like cider and fireball at a higher ratio but we settled at 2 ounces of Fireball per pint of dry cider. We’re not in college any more, and we don’t need that kind of firepower. There was plenty to be had in the movie.
The Rules:
We looked to the Die Hard pros for some inspiration, Leanna’s brother Shelby, who some might call a die hard Die Hard fan.
- Drink whenever John McClane disagrees with the cops.
- Drink whenever Christmas is referenced including trees, festive dress, and, if you’re really feeling adventurous, every time someone says “Jesus” or “Christ.” (This one caused us to drink a fair bit through out the film.)
- Finish your drink when John McClane says, “Yipee-ki-yay…”
The Movie:
Without a doubt, this was the best movie we watched for Munch. The writing was bearable, the plot made sense, and the lead actor was on point, although we had a hard time believing it was really Bruce Willis. We barely recognized him with hair and without his signature crow’s feet.
Before Die Hard, Bruce Willis was known as a comedic actor (seriously). In the first five minutes of the movie, the director really drove the point home that Bruce Willis was not the comedian in this movie – they left that role to Argyle, everyone’s favorite limo driver with the infectious laugh.
The director also really convinced us that this was a Christmas movie. McClane fulfills the classic Santa archetype: flying into town for Christmas from up north, climbing down chimneys (or elevator shafts) to bust in uninvited, bearing gifts (or guns)… Plus there was Christmas shit casually sprinkled all over the place.
A great addition to the movie was Severus Snape. Yes, Alan Rickman was Hans Gruber before he was Snape, but he will always be Snape to the Harry Potter generation of which we are very loyal members. Also, we’re pretty sure Hans Gruber and Snape are the same person. We can’t back this up with “facts” or “theories,” it’s just a feeling that we have.
Imagine this though: this all takes place prior to the events of The Deathly Hollows and Snape is still in a situation where he is playing for both sides. Voldermort, née Tom Marvolo Riddle, sends Snape on a quest to acquire some magical information that somehow found its way into muggle hands (obviously the Nakatomi Corporation). He has to do all of this while pretending to be a muggle, kill a few people, reap some terror and make it seem like Snape dies in the end despite in reality just casting the creepy, smoky, wispy Death Eater transportation spell on his way out the Nakatomi Tower window.
The leftover smoke from all the explosions would have made the perfect cover.
We really think this improves both movies and fills us in on Snape’s backstory a little bit more and expands just how versatile and sneaky he is. He is going under cover while already potentially being under cover, and if that isn’t the coolest thing, we honestly don’t know what is. Snape also did a wonderful job with his disguise by growing a pretty flimsy beard and using some magic to dye his hair. Snape epitomizes what we were going for with this post and puts the Dye in Dye Hard.
You may have a half-assed beard and light-colored hair, but those condescending eyes are a dead giveaway of Snape’s identity.
The other great part about Snape was that he made it a requirement that all of his henchman have long, glorious Pantene Provene drenched hair. Both of the men watching the movie were inspired to grow out their hair after seeing how well the Germans rocked it.
The last addition that really sold us on the movie was how easily Bruce Willis was distracted by boobs. Every time Bruce passed the pin up by the elevator shaft, he did a double take, even while under fire. The director also gave Bruce a scene where he’s checking out a naked woman in the building across the street, with no relation to the plot or the scenes before and after it. Maybe John McClane just has a lot of appreciation for the female form, maybe Bruce Willis was pulling from his earlier days as a comedic actor and improvising to embellish his character, or maybe there’s another reason entirely. We may never know.
The Ratings:
Andre: 5 stars. I don’t watch a lot of action movies because I see them as the movie equivalent of junk food, but for me, this movie was more like Christmas sweets. Yes, it’s junk food, but it’s okay and even encouraged to enjoy it at the right time. And damn, it tastes so good.
Leanna: On a scale of Wes Anderson to Michael Bay, I give it a Sylvester Stallone. It’s pretty much what you’d expect: main character spends the majority of the time in a tank top/shirtless, lots of collateral damage, a minor love story subplot, etc. It was an added bonus for me watching Snape get up to no good as a muggle, and the German terrorists with flowing locks and bulging arm muscles weren’t too bad either. Except for being terrorists…
Ben: You know what? Die Hard is a pretty good movie. I know I am not blowing any minds with that statement, but I had a pretty enjoyable time. 90%. There were some smart plays from the main villain, Severus Snape, and some tense moments that really puts you in the shoes, or lack there of, of McClane. Die Hard turned out to be a wonderful present to ourselves, and what a perfect time to give it, right before Christmas.
