Or is Die Hard a Home Alone movie (checks release dates, 88, 90) Nope, Home Alone's a Die Hard ... of course, now I want to hear a review of the "Die Hard Sequels" that includes the Home Alone films and compares how each one sits as a representative of the Die Hard genre.
@@spinakker14 - I mean, why not. It's a great movie :P For me it's solidly a Thanksgiving movie though - mostly because a few years back I was home sick for thanksgiving and on a whim started going through it trying to find a specific scene and "accidentally" ended up watching the entire extended trilogy in one sitting. That was a fun night, despite being sick, lol.
@@spinakker14 the movies came out in December (at least here in the uk) and my family went to see them in the cinema each year as they came out so I always think of the LOTR trilogy as Christmas movies
@@locksmith2441 Isn't "Die Hard" a substantive? Like John McClane is the die-hard, as in he just won't friggin die already. I'm not an English native but that's the only way I could make sense of that title. (yes I'm totally being nit-picky on a Latin joke, but I've been wondering for so long)
@@jeiaz No, you see in that case it would have to be a modifier, as in "I am a die-hard fan of Christmas movies." In that case, in order for Die-Hard to work as such it needs a subject to modify, and if you use John McClane as said subject then you would be saying, He is a die-hard John McClaneian type person., The movie is based on a novel by Roderick Thorpe called, "Nothing Lasts Forever." which tells me the title Die Hard is a way of saying while some things are hard to kill, it is not imposible.to do so. So if anything it is really a descriptor for the Hans Gruber character in so much as he was hard to kill. but did in fact....die. (Change My Mind.)
I’m sure that the moment when I STARTED saying that Die Hard is a Christmas Movie I was trolling, but I started watching it every year, so now I sincerely think of Die Hard whenever Christmas comes along. I’ve Pavlov’s Dog-ed myself.
Empire Strikes Back, if you follow Leia. Tense road trip with a rough working class man from your snowed in office that takes an unexpected detour, you run into his ex and your estranged dad, there's a very tense sit down dinner, your brother shows up home from college and a family brawl kicks off.
Star Trek Generations has a scene where Picard is trapped in an anomaly showing him anything he ever wanted, which in this case is sitting with the kids he never had on Christmas. Ergo, Generations is the best Christmas movie.
Leia shows up to family dinner with her future husband. Her brother's late coming from college. Her dad kidnaps the guy she brought. She cuts her losses and decides to leave. Her brother shoots her a text. He arrived, but got into a big fight with their dad. He doesn't have a ride and needs her to pick him up. She luckily gets the text just in time. She goes back to pick him up. Yup, sounds about right.
I literally watch it every year. Michael Caine is acting the fuck out of his role like hes not talking to felt on a stick, there are some legitimately spooky parts, and I can be relatively sure no actors cried on set between takes because CGI makes actors sad.
@@laurenbastin8849 Apparently he remembers it fondly, you can find interviews where he talks about how much he liked it, I think it really shows thru on his performance.
That scene with you fully clothed in the shower really threw me for a loop! The thing is, Russia has its definitive Christmas move, and that movie is "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!" by Eldar Ryazanov. There is an iconic scene in that movie, where one of the characters comes into the flat from the street completely drunk, takes a shower fully clothed while delivering a heart-felt monologue about the moral failings of the main characters, and then leaves again, in his wet clothes, into the frosty winter, presumably to die from cold. I wouldn't expect you to be familiar with that movie, but this really looked like an intentional reference on your part!
tired: die hard is a christmas movie wired: "christmas movie" is a signifier clarifying our position in the social conversation inspired: movies don't exist and are a shared mass hallucination
Books too. You look at squiggles and enter a guided hallucination, then later you argue passionately with your friends about what the secret motivations and passions of the characters within them may have been.
Ah, but if the movie is a hallucination, then what's to say everyone around us isn't a hallucination, or that everything around us is a movie for that matter. It's fuckin Solipsism, innit. But if we're doing down That route, then Everything is a hallucination, so Movie loses any and all valuable meaning it has, and so From That we become Useless. Instead of that, we can Also just not care Like Me with trying to remember what point this was in reply to
This is a fabulous joke, but somehow my friend group's annual group re-watch of The Hobbit movie trilogy DOES happen to coincide right before Thanksgiving kicks off, somehow, so now I'm questioning my own re-watch habits because I've never made it a point to watch LOTR around Christmas.
@@loreleihayden454 The joke is that The Hobbit is horrible and should have been one tight movie. Drop all LotR tie-ins, drop the dumb characters Jackson dragged in, bring back the dumb characters Jackson left out, and claw back all Bilbo's achievements back to him and away from the dwarves. The script was published in 1937, Jackson just needed to hire some people to do those things and say those words in New Zealand.
@@vincentplag little known fact: folding ideas actually has secretly referred to the bend test they do on power 9 cards to check if they’re real the whole time
@@thomasstone3480 kinda arguable, if it’s something like mana drain in CMR and you aren’t playing blue I think hatedrafting that is more worthwhile than getting an uncommon in your colors that will likely be passed back. Like, it isn’t a great strategy to use by itself as the only way you draft but there’s a lot of situations where it’s the best choice
Spring Breakers is a Harmony Korine film and I'll never get over that. The man behind Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy, and Trash Humpers made a movie called Spring Breakers with Selena Gomez and Gucci Mane.
Honestly, I want to hear his arguments for WHY Spring Breakers is a Christmas movie. He says “what brings people together”, but I cannot think of a movie that is the antithesis of “bringing people together” as much as Spring Breakers is.
@@phastinemoon I think that's the joke its the least christmas movie you could possibly think of, and it would be funny to watch it during christmas. But I already loved that movie and Harmony korine so I think I'll start making it my own christmas movie
Shit Justin, I was gunna say this episode of Folding Ideas is my favorite Christmas movie but I feel like I'm chomping your bit, welp it's out there now
My answer is very generic. A Christmas Story. "You'll shoot you eye out!" The application, however, is essential. Turn the TV to a channel that is doing an all day marathon of aCS. Catch the middle of the movie. Leave. Have some lunch, catch some of the early scenes and part of the middle. Leave for presents. Catch the very end and the movie and the first scenes. Wander off. Dinner, more random segments The end result is that I have seen aCS a dozen times in segmented total but i have never seen it from beginning to end.
As a single guy with no family, living on his own, with all of my friends off to see their relatives, during COVID lockdown, on the exact tenth anniversary of the breakdown of my most important relationship... I think I'll go with 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'.
I think that’s because it’s got basically the same plot as A Christmas Carrol the main character is flawed a supernatural event happens to them then once the main character becomes a better person it turns out for the outside world no time has passed at all
Little Women, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, The Sound of Music, and Harry Potter are all Christmas movies to me. I understand that they aren't really Christmas movies, but my family watch them at Christmas, so they feel Christmas-y to me.
A lot of the Harry Potter movies have amazing Christmas scenes. I always envied Hogwarts Christmases as a kid. I still love watching the scene when Harry gets gifts from the Weasleys for the first time.
It's strange, but I associate the Harry Potter movies with Christmas and the books with Halloween. Not sure why, but I always get the urge to re-read the books around then.
@@skizzit It may have something to do with a lot of covers of the Harry Potter books having the Orange color proeminently, and the first one has Harry flying like those pumpkin carrying witches from horror stories, which is quite Halloween-ey, while the movies have many scenes in cold looking dark conipherous woods at night or old town streets, which are often the kind of scenarios seen in Christmas movies.
"Christmas Movies" are any movie airing on the Hallmark Channel, and *only* movies that air on the Hallmark Channel. Dan knows what's up, he's even subtly wearing a Hallmark crown.
the best Christmas movie is eating Chinese food and watching a *non-Christmas* movie, then playing chess and grumbling about how everything is closed for no reason
This year my family’s Christmas movie is playing board games online (four of us, all in different geographic locations). My older daughter has dubbed the event Commie Jew Christmas Games. 😏
Today, I got absolutely baked out of my mind and watched Into the Spider-Verse and I'd like to submit it for consideration as a Christmas- Spirit-Purist-Candy-Cane-Radical Christmas movie.
Unironically, and with minimal attempt at subversion of the question. Star Wars is a Christmas movie to me. Like, on Christmas we watch star wars. That's the tradition that we've had and it just doesn't quite feel like Christmas without that. It's like, star wars and really sweet popcorn and sugar cookies. Usually in the evening after the day has wound down and we have all a chance to do other things and have a full and wonderful day.
I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, even as someone who doesn't really watch anything non-standard for Chistmas. Traditions are what you make of them, and if watching Star Wars is a part of Christmas for you, then it's a holiday tradition and by extension a holiday movie in that context.
For a lot of people, the _Harry Potter_ films are Christmas movies, especially the first three or four. Despite taking place throughout a full school year and the impact of Christmas being rarely more than a scene, they are Christmas movies for a lot of people for the sole reason that in many countries, those films were shown on TV as a marathon throughout Christmas time, usually advertised with the same snow-filled shots from _Prisoner of Azkaban_ and Harry and Ron opening presents on their first year of Hogwarts. For them, tween Daniel Radcliffe is a part of the holiday just as much as Home Alone is to someone else. Whoo, boy, am I glad I'm not one of those people now.
I hear you, even with a very different answer - The Wallace and Gromit series of short films (and one feature length). With the exception of Curse of the Were-Rabbit, they all premiered Christmas day or close to it, they're always aired on television around the Christmas period, and as such I kind of... Grew up watching them over Christmas and while I like them and none of them are remotely festive in content it feels weird to watch them any other time of year to me now. Depends on my mood what I'd pick as my favourite.
LotR has gotta be my favorite set of Christmas movies. They are about bringing people putting aside their differences, and working together for the common good, they also feature a lot of elves!
Casablanca. First because I genuinely do watch it every Christmas, and second because it's about a cynical man rejecting the easy life of neutrality and anger and instead remembering love, duty and putting the greater good of the world above his selfish wants, he even manages to redeem the even worse corrupt police chief and they go off into the foggy distance to fight for decency, freedom and fighting nazis. If that isn't a thing of beauty deserving of Christmas movie-dom than you have no heart.
The stakes of "What is a Christmas movie?" are dire. At an obligatory family gathering if you can successfully argue to watch, say, "Krampus" instead of a saccharine bore or a poorly aged comedy, then you've made Christmas substantively better for yourself and likely others. It is not merely the realm of internet pedantry but a true and real reflection of how people maneuver their way through the holidays with minimal psychic damage.
Yeah I’m not gonna go so far as to say being forced to watch the TBS “A Christmas Story” marathon is the reason I major depressive disorder that spikes around the holidays... But I’m also not *not* saying that
A nice compromise on the Krampus vs. Comedy argument might be Mixed Nuts. It's a comedy that takes place on Christmas Eve at a suicide hotline. There's a guy in a Santa costume, Christmas trees, a serial killer and presents.
Did Hard was one of my Dad's favorite movies of all time (he was a large part in picking what was shown at the Seattle film festival before he died, and had a life-long love of movies, but in this particular case I suspect he might have just been in love with Bruce Willis). His birthday is also on December 24th. I'd always been skeptical of Die Hard, as I usually am with violent 90s cult classics, but when I actually sat down to watch it, I enjoyed myself, copaganda aside. It made me feel closer to him. For these reasons your honor, Die Hard is my favorite Christmas movie,
I need to share the TRUE FACT that in Italy Trading Places, of all movies, is the one we're supposed to see each Christmas and it's been this way for decades. Trading Places is Italy's pick for most Christmas movie, no doubt.
This is the first time I realize that the "Die Hard"-answer is consedered to be a trolling thing (also realizing that I have been living under a rock and that I might have made some people irritaded for other reasons than just having bad taste). As a kid (early 2000s) it was like a thing in our family to pop in the Die Hard 1 and 2 VHS at least one time during the week before christmas. And for at least a decade, or possible since the 90s, I think it is quite a standard movie to show in some Swedish TV chanels. This has definitely been a thing since before social media trolling became a thing (in my life), but I guess it might just as well might have been a wise as holliday tv planing thing that just happened over and over again. I just assumed that this was like some kind of offical position for people that likes action movies, like "call me crazy but I actually prefer Die Hard and it really puts me in the mood for presents and santa stuff". When I hear this I think that there is/was an honest crew (me included) who actually considered this to be a fairly decent christmas movie (not analyzing the B-plot...) an that this group of people triggered a response from....normal people... that made Die Hard the go-to-answer for others. This makes me pissed because now I understand that I just come of as a "wannabe provocative and experiment with people by saying stuff" when I was completely content with being a harmless weirdo on my own before realizing the magnitude of the "Die Hard as a Christmas movie"-stereotype. Man. First fedoras and now this.
Oof. Yeah, some people have odd (non-traditional?) Christmas traditions, and it sucks having a genuine gesture of sentimentality co-opted by edgelords. 'Cause, I mean, if you take away the standard trolling tropes, that sounds like an answer with a neat story behind it! (On the note of being blithely unaware of giving the wrong impression, it seems like you might've typoed 'content'? _Contempt_ means hatred/loathing/disgust for/etc., which seems very much not the impression you're trying to convey!)
It really is wild when something that's so natural to you turns out to be a major debate topic elsewhere in the world (in a much louder part of the world that defines a lot of online conversation). My example: where I am, pineapple on pizza was always one of the standard options, hawaiian being as default as meat lovers or supreme or pepperoni pizza. And yet, apparently that's controversial in America?
i'm surprised i had to scroll so far to find somebody else that organically found their family watching die hard as a christmas tradition. it very well may be possible that the first time we watched it on christmas eve it was suggested somewhat jokingly, but it basically immediately became our definitive christmas movie, the one nobody would object to and everybody was happy to watch. i've seen it tens of times and not once outside of december, it would feel wrong to me to watch it not around christmas.
I'm so impressed by the sweater. It is absolutely perfect for this video. It is all one color, and yet it is ugly, ugly in a way I have difficulty explaining. Maybe it's the slightly different patterns separated by the horizontal bar? It's not horribly ugly, just... Ugly. It reminds me of when Sarah Vowell took goth lessons and chose as her goth name the most perverse name she could think of, "Becky," and the girl who was doing her makeup said that she was displaying real understanding of what goth was all about. This sweater isn't just ugly. It understands being an ugly sweater. Anyway, I really like the sweater.
Ya know, that last reflection on tradition as an anchor really resonated with me as this year, i had no fireplace, no long drunken talk with my brother as dogs lay about with way to much Chinese food in the kitchen, getting cold. I missed that, so thank you, make more content more frequently. please
The MST3K take on "Santa Claus Conquers The Martians" is a true holiday classic. And the original movie does have a couple of good points as well as numerous bad points. #CandyCaneRadical
I will say that to me Die Hard is Christmas Movie. Since I could remember my dad alway put it on for Christmas morning. I continue to watch it every year since he passed. I never saw it in a theater, a remember first seeing it during Christmas.
Dan I completely agree with the point you made about tradition and ritual and have been thinking this exact thing and about how it relates to christmas! This is such a consistently great channel and I think you say such spot on stuff all the time - thanks for making this stuff!
this year my family made a chart as we watched our favorites: a quadratic graph with x axis categorizing a movie from "christmas appears as a setting or plot point, no matter how minor" to "movie's central thesis or central concern is, in some way, christmas;" and on the y axis we tracked tone from mirthful to serious, or "dirth of mirth." we considered including a z axis labelled good/bad but decided that was ultimately unrelated to the point and therefore simply muddled readability. our system is perhaps limited in categorization but allows for a deep examination of the minutia. glad to see we're not the only ones taking this too seriously
I realized this year that I only did the urge to watch Anastasia right around Christmas time because in my head it feels like a Christmas movie. It's set in the winter particularly in the snow. There is a train which sometimes is used as a symbol of Christmas. It's a very sparkly spangly movie. The themes of love and caring about each other and family are very Christmas flavored to me. In a lot of ways it feels more in the Christmas spirit than a lot of movies that are directly about Christmas.
Now during the pandemic of 2020, I mostly tell time by "day" or "night," which is dictated by the sun. I like it better than the old ways in the Before Times.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy Is a Christmas movie trilogy because it came out three Decembers in a row, hence becoming a 3-year going to the theater on christmas day tradition and then subsequently a rewatching LOTR on Christmas day tradition.
YES. This was a huge deal in my family. Also, we had followed the development of the movie for YEARS before it came out, so it wasn’t just a three year thing for us. Also, this was the first movie series to do this staggered or serial release (the next closest thing was Harry Potter, but the first one of those came out just a few months before Fellowship). It was almost like more than just movies. True story: I remember seeing some other movie in the theater in mid 2002 and a trailer for Two Towers played beforehand. I was so stoked that I immediately lost all interest in whatever movie I was there to see, thinking, “what’s the point?” and I legitimately felt bad for that movie itself that it wasn’t Two Towers. Today I have no recollection of what movie that was, poor thing.
Where I am from, they air the lotr trilogy around Christmas and New year so it has become a Christmas movie in my mind. It's now become a tradition for me and my brother to watch the movies once a year.
March 18th, 2021 Dear journal, I came back again today on the channel, hopping as always to find some new content. My mind is starving and I feel like Folding Ideas is the empty fridge into which I keep looking, hoping that this time I'm gonna find something. But I must admit that I'm a little worry now. You remember, dear Journal, when Dan made his video on Contagion, and then didn't published for months? I thought something bad had happen, even more so with the dark tone of the video. But I was wrong. Nothing bad had happen. He was gone on a journey, deep down into the Flat-Earth/Q-Anon rabbit hole and found there the colors for a new masterpiece. Those endeavors take time. I comfort myself by imagining Dan in some deep, mindboggling train of thought, looking for the colors of his next chef d'oeuvre. I'm sure everything will be fine. Also I watched WonderWoman 1984 today, but I would prefer not to talk about it. Happy St. Patrick! Your pen pal
but that's not the reason why we watch die hard the reason why we watch die hard is because is better watch die hard for the 100th time than watch any of those x-mas movies
For a number of years in the 90s and maybe even early 2000s Die Hard has been played on the evening on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day on free to air TV in Poland. Hence it became a Christmas movie.
I also want to let people know that my mom and I naturally and unironically took on diehard as our Christmas movie tradition. She likes to translate the German bits.
The argument over Christmas movies has to be one of the most American things I've observed in my life. ;) Jokes aside, I agree the argument has become some kind of ritual itself, a meme even if you will. But as an ESL let met tell you, this amuses me greatly because even before the argument became "a thing", I had ALWAYS been confused about what "Christmas movie" even MEANS. The way the phrase "Christmas movie" is formed makes the meaning ambiguous. Is it talking about the time the movie is watched or is it talking about the content of the movie? If I had to translate the phrase, I wouldn't know how, because each meaning would require a different structure in my first language! When you have a word with more than one meaning, what do you do? You use context - but I couldn't do that either because the answers I'd see people give were contradictory! I tried asking in a chatroom once when the internet was a young thing - it went as well as you expect lol. I bet this whole argument started because people at some point realized there were two different ways to read that and started to try to convince others that their interpretation of the phrase is the right one (you know all that "the way *I* always heard it is B so obviously that's what it means, nobody would mean A that's ridiculous!" deal) and it evolved into finding the "right definition". And finding the right definition, as you said, it's impossible, because no definition will now cover all the films that are now considered "Christmas movies" .
I find something similar related to "Christmas songs". I was trying to create a list of 25 Christmas songs that -are bearable- don't suck and wouldn't let myself put "Walking in the Air" (Nightwish) and "Once Upon a December" (Anastasia soundtrack) on it because they 'weren't technically Christmas songs' ... but the standards "Winter Wonderland", "Let it Snow" and "Jingle Bells" don't mention anything related to Christmas at all, save for snow (and, I mean, not all places get snow for Christmas, even in the continental US). So why am I totally okay putting Straight No Chaser and Weird Al on the list, but not those^ two songs?
My friends and I have brute forced a tradition of watching Cats on the December full moon for the past four years. Cats is now a Christmas movie to us.
I don't think that it's simply a matter of semantics to differentiate between "what is your favorite Christmas movie?" and "what is your favorite movie to watch around Christmas?" For the latter, the holiday is simply coincidental; it provides us space to watch a movie that we enjoy, but that could be true for any arbitrary time of year at which we are able to watch that movie (with or without others).
1:16 I disagree with this basic idea. What defines a Christmas movie is, in fact, the focus on Christmas and it's surrounding trappings. A movie that you watch on or around Christmas is just a movie that you watch on or around Christmas. A Christmas movie is a movie that is intrinsically about Christmas in some way. And yes, movies about in-universe versions of equivalent holidays, like The Hogfather, count as Christmas movies.
Tbh for me die hard has become my favourite Christmas movie, it was one of my favourite movies when I watched it for the first time and years later when conversation started about it being the best Christmas movie around Christmas time that year it actually caused me to re-watch it, and since then watching all 3 movies (there are only 3 in my head cannon) has become an annual ritual for me that continues to this day. It's not a Christmas movie to me in the traditional sense of it being about Christmas or the spirit of Christmas, but rather a movie that for me has become associated with the time of year and that just brings me a lot of joy and allows me for a few hours to forget all the shitty things in my life and the world we live on.
This video is my favourite Christmas movie. I watch it every year and it really puts me in the mood to drink wine and argue with my brother over turkey dinner.
Only partly trolling here, but honestly my strange family watched "The Lion in Winter" at Christmas. And yes it takes place at that time. Not my favorite Christmas movie but it was traditional for us.
We watch Lion in Winter every Christmas morning in this household as well and we’re better off for it! It’s got family drama, Christmas, Gregorian chant music, and backstabbing. Totally Christmas
@@kahoots7724 "What's this?" (Henry picks up a large wrapped parcel from beneath the tree and examines the tag) "To Henry." (He hefts it) "Heavy." (He grins and laughs) "It's my tombstone! Elanor, you spoil me!"
If only my enjoyment of Die Hard didn't prevent me from loving more socially-acceptable Christmas movies, including (but not limited to) Home Alone, The Muppets Christmas Carol, It's A Wonderful Life, Tokyo Godfathers, Gremlins, Krampus, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Jingle All The Way. Damn these things being mutually exclusive events!
Our “Christmas movie” this year is the Harry Potter series of movies. Funny enough, a tradition in my family is to watch Troy every thanksgiving. Idk, I guess while eating turkey there’s nothing better than watching people cut and slice each other up.
Many years ago, I read someone ranting around the time of the Super Bowl that "talking about sportsball doesn't make you clever!" Watching your video, I realize it's the same thing as counterpicking a Christmas movie. I'm not trying for "clever" (and, personally, I spend about as much energy on "sportsball" as I do on sports), I'm just making my tiny stand against the monolith of "ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL and/or ADS?!?!!" And I'm not. Tah dah! Thanks for giving the words to what I've been thinking about that ever since. Cheers!
Another factor to making counter-picks in this case may also be, that "good" Christmas movies are by design saccharine and often trite, separate from quality, the need to counter-pick may be a rebellion against that rather than the greater social inertia of christmas.
but... Die Hard isnt a troll. Maybe it was a troll*, but many, many people seriously sit down and watch Die Hard at Christmas. They are not just saying Die Hard to get a rise out of people, it is a literal part of their tradition and is often said more based on the idea of 'Arnt we wacky in our traditions.' than 'Thisll show those people with traditions.' So I dont really see the argument playing out quite like this video suggests it does. - *Although, I actually thought it became a Christmas movie less because people were trolling and more because a bunch of TV stations put it out at Christmas year after year, and it kind of grew from movie on at Christmas because of its setting in to a full blown Christmas movie.
My brothers and I used to get together and watch Die Hard at Christmas time cause we love action movies, and Die Hard checks both Christmas and Action movie boxes. I also watch Gremlins are Christmas cause I love horror and it does the same thing.
This was a really good video, actually touched on multiple things that have been kicking through my head (the Die Hard Christmas Movie discourse, practical utility of rituals, etc.). I wanna add a few things here: >I don't think everyone that gives out "Die Hard" as their favourite Christmas movie is intending to be subversive or give a "troll" answer, that may have been largely true back when folks started claiming it but the concept of Die Hard as a Christmas movie has persisted long enough that I think a lot of people very sincerely think of it as Christmas movie without any sort of subtext or sarcasm >For those that give a "troll" answer to the question of their favourite movie, I think it also serves as a way of subverting the cultural monolith of Christmas while also still engaging with it. It lets you take a couple jabs at the ritual while still acknowledging the ritual as valid and worth observing.
A Matter Of Life And Death is a very strong example of a film which *feels* incredibly Christmasy and yet actually has nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas
My favorite christmas movie is season 2 episode 11 of Community: _Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas_ It teaches us that "The meaning of christmas is the idea that the idea that christmas has meaning." which ties beautifully into this video.
When asked "what's your favorite Christmas movie", I don't answer Die Hard to be funny, I answer Die Hard because my family has gotten together to watch it on either Christmas Day or Christmas Eve every year for as long as I've been alive (maybe longer). It was the first Christmas movie I ever saw. For the 19 years I have been on this Earth, Christmas has been defined by Die Hard, not the other way around.
in his light, easy-hearted, thirteen-minute, holiday-season video -- christmas movies and clowning hat -- this man says "this is where we get into the dueling desires of the human psyche", and we all say "sure do!"
We all know that Batman vs superman is best christmas movie. For while your spirit will be lowered when watching it. It has no where to go but up once its over.
Tired: Die Hard is a Christmas Movie
Wired: All movies can be Christmas Movies.
Inspired: HOME ALONE IS A DIE HARD MOVIE
...this is surprisingly legit and I'm here for it.
I couldn't believe that such a brave statement could be also so correct. Truly a die hard miracle
That's just Playing Dangerous.
Or is Die Hard a Home Alone movie
(checks release dates, 88, 90)
Nope, Home Alone's a Die Hard
... of course, now I want to hear a review of the "Die Hard Sequels" that includes the Home Alone films and compares how each one sits as a representative of the Die Hard genre.
There was a Purple Stuff episode where they proved pretty convincingly that Home Alone is a Rambo movie.
My ritual is making people watch Polar Express while I argue that it’s part of the Silent Hill canon
I find myself intrigued.
I would love to hear an elaboration on this
I am all ears.
I expect a full length essay, a treatise, and a bimonthly series explaining yourself.
@@leonardorestrepo5196 (commenting to get notificated when they write it)
That's all well and good, but Lord of the Rings has elves in it and is therefore a Christmas movie.
Weirdly, it really is a Christmas movie for me and I don't know why
"No no he has a point" lol
@@spinakker14 - I mean, why not. It's a great movie :P
For me it's solidly a Thanksgiving movie though - mostly because a few years back I was home sick for thanksgiving and on a whim started going through it trying to find a specific scene and "accidentally" ended up watching the entire extended trilogy in one sitting. That was a fun night, despite being sick, lol.
@@spinakker14 the movies came out in December (at least here in the uk) and my family went to see them in the cinema each year as they came out so I always think of the LOTR trilogy as Christmas movies
It's a story where a jolly fat man with a big beard befriends an elf, it's definitely a Christmas movie.
Everyone knows Die Hard started out as a Pagan Festival.
Don't you mean "Morere Ferreus." (Die Hard in Latin.)
@@locksmith2441 Isn't "Die Hard" a substantive? Like John McClane is the die-hard, as in he just won't friggin die already. I'm not an English native but that's the only way I could make sense of that title. (yes I'm totally being nit-picky on a Latin joke, but I've been wondering for so long)
@@jeiaz You could say he's ever-green.
@@jeiaz No, you see in that case it would have to be a modifier, as in "I am a die-hard fan of Christmas movies." In that case, in order for Die-Hard to work as such it needs a subject to modify, and if you use John McClane as said subject then you would be saying, He is a die-hard John McClaneian type person., The movie is based on a novel by Roderick Thorpe called, "Nothing Lasts Forever." which tells me the title Die Hard is a way of saying while some things are hard to kill, it is not imposible.to do so. So if anything it is really a descriptor for the Hans Gruber character in so much as he was hard to kill. but did in fact....die. (Change My Mind.)
@@locksmith2441 Thanks for that answer!
I’m sure that the moment when I STARTED saying that Die Hard is a Christmas Movie I was trolling, but I started watching it every year, so now I sincerely think of Die Hard whenever Christmas comes along.
I’ve Pavlov’s Dog-ed myself.
This, x100.
I blame Nostalgia Critic.
@@KingBobXVI Good idea. What for this time?
Pavlov yourself
Tradition is that, on a societal scale. And memes.
Empire Strikes Back, if you follow Leia. Tense road trip with a rough working class man from your snowed in office that takes an unexpected detour, you run into his ex and your estranged dad, there's a very tense sit down dinner, your brother shows up home from college and a family brawl kicks off.
Star Trek Generations has a scene where Picard is trapped in an anomaly showing him anything he ever wanted, which in this case is sitting with the kids he never had on Christmas. Ergo, Generations is the best Christmas movie.
Empire just continues to kick ass. It’s so perfect.
Leia shows up to family dinner with her future husband.
Her brother's late coming from college.
Her dad kidnaps the guy she brought.
She cuts her losses and decides to leave.
Her brother shoots her a text.
He arrived, but got into a big fight with their dad.
He doesn't have a ride and needs her to pick him up.
She luckily gets the text just in time.
She goes back to pick him up.
Yup, sounds about right.
There's also the easier answer. Hoth has snow, snow is christmas-y, Empire Strikes Back is a Christmas movie.
So what I'm hearing is that _The Empire Strikes Back_ is _Five Easy Pieces._
You joke that “a skeleton is Christmas as long as it has a hat,” but a house in my city does exactly this for Christmas. It’s their gimmick.
Same! We have christmas skeletons at our house too!
@@I1like1wood1ash cool to know
Frick! That was my gimmick! WHAT AM I GOING TO DO NOW!
@@TheInfiniteGlitch continue unaffected.
@@TheInfiniteGlitch one is a gimmick, two is an inside joke, convince one other person and now you have a tradition my man
the only Christmas movie is actually a mupet Christmas carol.
the only movie is a muppet christmas carol
@@redactedredacted6656 - Wrong, counterpoint: _Muppet Treasure Island_ also exists, and is the best pirate movie ever.
I literally watch it every year. Michael Caine is acting the fuck out of his role like hes not talking to felt on a stick, there are some legitimately spooky parts, and I can be relatively sure no actors cried on set between takes because CGI makes actors sad.
@@BlindErephon fun fact: Michael Caine almost had a breakdown working on that film because he was talking to and acting at nothing but puppets
@@laurenbastin8849 Apparently he remembers it fondly, you can find interviews where he talks about how much he liked it, I think it really shows thru on his performance.
I want "social consensus is a nebulous thing" on a mug
I'm sure already is one... in a kind of... nebulous way?
@@csblakeley only if we all agree on it.
I want "Mugs are a nebulous thing" on a social consensus
Broke: "Trolling"
Woke: "Countering the social metagame"
That scene with you fully clothed in the shower really threw me for a loop!
The thing is, Russia has its definitive Christmas move, and that movie is "The Irony of Fate, or Enjoy Your Bath!" by Eldar Ryazanov. There is an iconic scene in that movie, where one of the characters comes into the flat from the street completely drunk, takes a shower fully clothed while delivering a heart-felt monologue about the moral failings of the main characters, and then leaves again, in his wet clothes, into the frosty winter, presumably to die from cold.
I wouldn't expect you to be familiar with that movie, but this really looked like an intentional reference on your part!
That scene description does sound profoundly Russian.
tired: die hard is a christmas movie
wired: "christmas movie" is a signifier clarifying our position in the social conversation
inspired: movies don't exist and are a shared mass hallucination
hahaha
After 2020, they certainly feel like a shared hallucination. Right along with going to "places".
Books too. You look at squiggles and enter a guided hallucination, then later you argue passionately with your friends about what the secret motivations and passions of the characters within them may have been.
I see you are taking the "there is no boat defense" to theseus here, good one
Ah, but if the movie is a hallucination, then what's to say everyone around us isn't a hallucination, or that everything around us is a movie for that matter.
It's fuckin Solipsism, innit.
But if we're doing down That route, then Everything is a hallucination, so Movie loses any and all valuable meaning it has, and so From That we become Useless.
Instead of that, we can Also just not care
Like Me with trying to remember what point this was in reply to
"On Christmas we watch the extended directors cut Lord of the Rings Trilogy"
"Oh, when so do you watch the Hobbit trilogy on Thanksgiving?"
"Get out"
This is a fabulous joke, but somehow my friend group's annual group re-watch of The Hobbit movie trilogy DOES happen to coincide right before Thanksgiving kicks off, somehow, so now I'm questioning my own re-watch habits because I've never made it a point to watch LOTR around Christmas.
@@loreleihayden454 The joke is that The Hobbit is horrible and should have been one tight movie. Drop all LotR tie-ins, drop the dumb characters Jackson dragged in, bring back the dumb characters Jackson left out, and claw back all Bilbo's achievements back to him and away from the dwarves. The script was published in 1937, Jackson just needed to hire some people to do those things and say those words in New Zealand.
When Dan brought up the draft format of magic: the gathering in the context of a rhetorical strategy I knew this was a video worth watching
its vintage cube season!
@@vincentplag little known fact: folding ideas actually has secretly referred to the bend test they do on power 9 cards to check if they’re real the whole time
This really is a fucking banger of a video, precisely because of stuff like that
although ironically hate drafting is actually a terrible strategy for nearly all mtg draft formats
@@thomasstone3480 kinda arguable, if it’s something like mana drain in CMR and you aren’t playing blue I think hatedrafting that is more worthwhile than getting an uncommon in your colors that will likely be passed back. Like, it isn’t a great strategy to use by itself as the only way you draft but there’s a lot of situations where it’s the best choice
Okay so what I'm hearing is that Dan watches Spring Breakers every Christmas.
Dan Alien
🤝
Spring Break
forever
Spring Breakers is a Harmony Korine film and I'll never get over that. The man behind Gummo, Julien Donkey-Boy, and Trash Humpers made a movie called Spring Breakers with Selena Gomez and Gucci Mane.
Honestly, I want to hear his arguments for WHY Spring Breakers is a Christmas movie.
He says “what brings people together”, but I cannot think of a movie that is the antithesis of “bringing people together” as much as Spring Breakers is.
@@phastinemoon I think that's the joke its the least christmas movie you could possibly think of, and it would be funny to watch it during christmas. But I already loved that movie and Harmony korine so I think I'll start making it my own christmas movie
YES! I have been saying for years the "Christmas Miracle" in Die Hard is Al learning to kill again. God bless us every one.
"Die Hard is a Christmas movie" is just seasonal "Hot dogs are sandwiches".
Calzone is ravioli?
A hot dog is a taco.
A hot dog is only a sandwich if you rip the bun in two so that you have two seperate pieces of bread.
@@benl2140 counterpoint, what about subway sandwiches? they're always connected on one side too
@@petraelliott5930 If the bun is connected, it's not a sandwich. Yes, I am going to die on this hill.
Ooh, a Folding Ideas Christmas episode! My Christmas just got this much better.
happy holidays *finger guns*
Hbomberguy's "War on Christmas" is also out! 👍 th-cam.com/video/jbZo4x0NbbI/w-d-xo.html
My favorite Folding Ideas christmas episode is his analysis of fifty shades: freed
Shit Justin, I was gunna say this episode of Folding Ideas is my favorite Christmas movie but I feel like I'm chomping your bit, welp it's out there now
My answer is very generic. A Christmas Story. "You'll shoot you eye out!" The application, however, is essential.
Turn the TV to a channel that is doing an all day marathon of aCS. Catch the middle of the movie. Leave. Have some lunch, catch some of the early scenes and part of the middle. Leave for presents. Catch the very end and the movie and the first scenes. Wander off. Dinner, more random segments
The end result is that I have seen aCS a dozen times in segmented total but i have never seen it from beginning to end.
As a single guy with no family, living on his own, with all of my friends off to see their relatives, during COVID lockdown, on the exact tenth anniversary of the breakdown of my most important relationship...
I think I'll go with 'Kiss Kiss Bang Bang'.
PJ Harvey 4-track demo cover... 😏
Omg I love that movie! Thanks for reminding me of its existence 🤣
Good luck dude, and good choice of movie!
When I clicked this I did not expect an exegesis about language philosophy, sociology and anthropology but... here we are. And I'm glad I got that.
Same!
Groundhog Day is the most christmas movie but I can't argue why.
It's literally even about a different Holiday. Your opinion is WILD and I fully respect you for it.
I think that’s because it’s got basically the same plot as A Christmas Carrol the main character is flawed a supernatural event happens to them then once the main character becomes a better person it turns out for the outside world no time has passed at all
snow
Punxsutawney Claus
Groundhog Day is the most christmas movie but I can't argue why.
Little Women, Lord of the Rings, Star Wars, The Sound of Music, and Harry Potter are all Christmas movies to me. I understand that they aren't really Christmas movies, but my family watch them at Christmas, so they feel Christmas-y to me.
A lot of the Harry Potter movies have amazing Christmas scenes. I always envied Hogwarts Christmases as a kid. I still love watching the scene when Harry gets gifts from the Weasleys for the first time.
It's strange, but I associate the Harry Potter movies with Christmas and the books with Halloween. Not sure why, but I always get the urge to re-read the books around then.
LotR also reminds me a lot of christmas because it was in cinemas around that time of the year and every year someone got me tickets for christmas
@@RaccoonInACocoon Same. And we rewatch the trilogy on DVDs every year because the holidays are the only free time long enough for those 3 movies.
@@skizzit It may have something to do with a lot of covers of the Harry Potter books having the Orange color proeminently, and the first one has Harry flying like those pumpkin carrying witches from horror stories, which is quite Halloween-ey, while the movies have many scenes in cold looking dark conipherous woods at night or old town streets, which are often the kind of scenarios seen in Christmas movies.
"Christmas Movies" are any movie airing on the Hallmark Channel, and *only* movies that air on the Hallmark Channel. Dan knows what's up, he's even subtly wearing a Hallmark crown.
subtlely??? I didn't take my eyes off that thing the whole time. he wore it in the shower scene. i feel like I'm going crazy here
Anyone else pause at "the pandemic of 2020" and think, "oh no, he's specifying to distinguish it from the next one"?
Can't have more than one when the first one never ends 😚😚😚
@@ILikedGooglePlus that’s not true. there could be multiple at the same time.
the best Christmas movie is eating Chinese food and watching a *non-Christmas* movie, then playing chess and grumbling about how everything is closed for no reason
This year my family’s Christmas movie is playing board games online (four of us, all in different geographic locations). My older daughter has dubbed the event Commie Jew Christmas Games. 😏
Jewish Christmas is objectively amazing and I do it despite not being Jewish.
Unfortunately this year everything is closed and has been closed and will remain closed ....
the best Christmas song is my mom bitching all December about how much she hates Christmas music
@@edgarallenhoe3518 Does she play Whamageddon?
Today, I got absolutely baked out of my mind and watched Into the Spider-Verse and I'd like to submit it for consideration as a Christmas- Spirit-Purist-Candy-Cane-Radical Christmas movie.
Unironically, and with minimal attempt at subversion of the question. Star Wars is a Christmas movie to me. Like, on Christmas we watch star wars. That's the tradition that we've had and it just doesn't quite feel like Christmas without that. It's like, star wars and really sweet popcorn and sugar cookies. Usually in the evening after the day has wound down and we have all a chance to do other things and have a full and wonderful day.
I wholeheartedly agree with this sentiment, even as someone who doesn't really watch anything non-standard for Chistmas. Traditions are what you make of them, and if watching Star Wars is a part of Christmas for you, then it's a holiday tradition and by extension a holiday movie in that context.
For a lot of people, the _Harry Potter_ films are Christmas movies, especially the first three or four. Despite taking place throughout a full school year and the impact of Christmas being rarely more than a scene, they are Christmas movies for a lot of people for the sole reason that in many countries, those films were shown on TV as a marathon throughout Christmas time, usually advertised with the same snow-filled shots from _Prisoner of Azkaban_ and Harry and Ron opening presents on their first year of Hogwarts. For them, tween Daniel Radcliffe is a part of the holiday just as much as Home Alone is to someone else.
Whoo, boy, am I glad I'm not one of those people now.
We always watched the Star Wars Trilogy on VHS on Christmas growing up. I count it as a Xmas movie.
Star Wars is more of a Life Day movie
I hear you, even with a very different answer - The Wallace and Gromit series of short films (and one feature length). With the exception of Curse of the Were-Rabbit, they all premiered Christmas day or close to it, they're always aired on television around the Christmas period, and as such I kind of... Grew up watching them over Christmas and while I like them and none of them are remotely festive in content it feels weird to watch them any other time of year to me now. Depends on my mood what I'd pick as my favourite.
LotR has gotta be my favorite set of Christmas movies. They are about bringing people putting aside their differences, and working together for the common good, they also feature a lot of elves!
And they’re gay!
Casablanca. First because I genuinely do watch it every Christmas, and second because it's about a cynical man rejecting the easy life of neutrality and anger and instead remembering love, duty and putting the greater good of the world above his selfish wants, he even manages to redeem the even worse corrupt police chief and they go off into the foggy distance to fight for decency, freedom and fighting nazis.
If that isn't a thing of beauty deserving of Christmas movie-dom than you have no heart.
My favorite is unironically The Nightmare Before Christmas. The Christmas movie for people who have few to no good memories/traditions about Christmas
The stakes of "What is a Christmas movie?" are dire. At an obligatory family gathering if you can successfully argue to watch, say, "Krampus" instead of a saccharine bore or a poorly aged comedy, then you've made Christmas substantively better for yourself and likely others. It is not merely the realm of internet pedantry but a true and real reflection of how people maneuver their way through the holidays with minimal psychic damage.
Yeah I’m not gonna go so far as to say being forced to watch the TBS “A Christmas Story” marathon is the reason I major depressive disorder that spikes around the holidays...
But I’m also not *not* saying that
A nice compromise on the Krampus vs. Comedy argument might be Mixed Nuts. It's a comedy that takes place on Christmas Eve at a suicide hotline. There's a guy in a Santa costume, Christmas trees, a serial killer and presents.
Plato: A Christmas movie is any movie with a plot that hinges on the fact that it's Christmas
Diogenes, holding a copy of Die Hard:
Did Hard was one of my Dad's favorite movies of all time (he was a large part in picking what was shown at the Seattle film festival before he died, and had a life-long love of movies, but in this particular case I suspect he might have just been in love with Bruce Willis). His birthday is also on December 24th. I'd always been skeptical of Die Hard, as I usually am with violent 90s cult classics, but when I actually sat down to watch it, I enjoyed myself, copaganda aside. It made me feel closer to him. For these reasons your honor, Die Hard is my favorite Christmas movie,
My favourite Christmas film is Tokyo Godfathers.
Yours milquetoastedly,
Commenter F.Marigold.
It's the only one that makes christmas miracles feel real.
I need to share the TRUE FACT that in Italy Trading Places, of all movies, is the one we're supposed to see each Christmas and it's been this way for decades.
Trading Places is Italy's pick for most Christmas movie, no doubt.
The Fifth Element is the ONLY Bruce Willis Christmas movie I'll recognize.
This is the first time I realize that the "Die Hard"-answer is consedered to be a trolling thing (also realizing that I have been living under a rock and that I might have made some people irritaded for other reasons than just having bad taste). As a kid (early 2000s) it was like a thing in our family to pop in the Die Hard 1 and 2 VHS at least one time during the week before christmas.
And for at least a decade, or possible since the 90s, I think it is quite a standard movie to show in some Swedish TV chanels. This has definitely been a thing since before social media trolling became a thing (in my life), but I guess it might just as well might have been a wise as holliday tv planing thing that just happened over and over again. I just assumed that this was like some kind of offical position for people that likes action movies, like "call me crazy but I actually prefer Die Hard and it really puts me in the mood for presents and santa stuff".
When I hear this I think that there is/was an honest crew (me included) who actually considered this to be a fairly decent christmas movie (not analyzing the B-plot...) an that this group of people triggered a response from....normal people... that made Die Hard the go-to-answer for others. This makes me pissed because now I understand that I just come of as a "wannabe provocative and experiment with people by saying stuff" when I was completely content with being a harmless weirdo on my own before realizing the magnitude of the "Die Hard as a Christmas movie"-stereotype.
Man. First fedoras and now this.
Oof. Yeah, some people have odd (non-traditional?) Christmas traditions, and it sucks having a genuine gesture of sentimentality co-opted by edgelords. 'Cause, I mean, if you take away the standard trolling tropes, that sounds like an answer with a neat story behind it!
(On the note of being blithely unaware of giving the wrong impression, it seems like you might've typoed 'content'? _Contempt_ means hatred/loathing/disgust for/etc., which seems very much not the impression you're trying to convey!)
@@amphioxusanniversary Omg, thanks for the spell check. :P
It really is wild when something that's so natural to you turns out to be a major debate topic elsewhere in the world (in a much louder part of the world that defines a lot of online conversation). My example: where I am, pineapple on pizza was always one of the standard options, hawaiian being as default as meat lovers or supreme or pepperoni pizza. And yet, apparently that's controversial in America?
i'm surprised i had to scroll so far to find somebody else that organically found their family watching die hard as a christmas tradition. it very well may be possible that the first time we watched it on christmas eve it was suggested somewhat jokingly, but it basically immediately became our definitive christmas movie, the one nobody would object to and everybody was happy to watch. i've seen it tens of times and not once outside of december, it would feel wrong to me to watch it not around christmas.
20 years ago, a random TV channel had Silverado on at 11 PM on Christmas Eve. My brothers and I have made sure to watch it every Christmas Eve since.
I'm so impressed by the sweater. It is absolutely perfect for this video. It is all one color, and yet it is ugly, ugly in a way I have difficulty explaining. Maybe it's the slightly different patterns separated by the horizontal bar? It's not horribly ugly, just... Ugly. It reminds me of when Sarah Vowell took goth lessons and chose as her goth name the most perverse name she could think of, "Becky," and the girl who was doing her makeup said that she was displaying real understanding of what goth was all about. This sweater isn't just ugly. It understands being an ugly sweater. Anyway, I really like the sweater.
Ya know, that last reflection on tradition as an anchor really resonated with me as this year, i had no fireplace, no long drunken talk with my brother as dogs lay about with way to much Chinese food in the kitchen, getting cold. I missed that, so thank you, make more content more frequently. please
Well I now feel comfortable talking about the objectively best Christmas movie, Gremlins. Going to have to watch that tonight.
My favorite Christmas movie is The Hogfather. Happy Hogswatch everybody. Together we choose to believe in things to make the world a better place
The MST3K take on "Santa Claus Conquers The Martians" is a true holiday classic. And the original movie does have a couple of good points as well as numerous bad points. #CandyCaneRadical
gonna have to dig out that thing for this year, my dad has the original movie on a dvd collection haha
"Droppo, you are the laziest man on Mars!"
Neat new video! Surely the first time it has ever been posted!!
I will say that to me Die Hard is Christmas Movie. Since I could remember my dad alway put it on for Christmas morning.
I continue to watch it every year since he passed.
I never saw it in a theater, a remember first seeing it during Christmas.
the best christmas movie is Star Wars The Holiday Special
As it should be
That came out in November.
Dan I completely agree with the point you made about tradition and ritual and have been thinking this exact thing and about how it relates to christmas! This is such a consistently great channel and I think you say such spot on stuff all the time - thanks for making this stuff!
this year my family made a chart as we watched our favorites: a quadratic graph with x axis categorizing a movie from "christmas appears as a setting or plot point, no matter how minor" to "movie's central thesis or central concern is, in some way, christmas;" and on the y axis we tracked tone from mirthful to serious, or "dirth of mirth." we considered including a z axis labelled good/bad but decided that was ultimately unrelated to the point and therefore simply muddled readability.
our system is perhaps limited in categorization but allows for a deep examination of the minutia.
glad to see we're not the only ones taking this too seriously
I realized this year that I only did the urge to watch Anastasia right around Christmas time because in my head it feels like a Christmas movie. It's set in the winter particularly in the snow. There is a train which sometimes is used as a symbol of Christmas. It's a very sparkly spangly movie. The themes of love and caring about each other and family are very Christmas flavored to me. In a lot of ways it feels more in the Christmas spirit than a lot of movies that are directly about Christmas.
Dan, you have such a wonderful way with your words. I absolutely love your videos. Keep up the great work, and happy arbitrary-temporal-milestone!
Now during the pandemic of 2020, I mostly tell time by "day" or "night," which is dictated by the sun. I like it better than the old ways in the Before Times.
I feel that.
Had some students ask me if Die Hard is a Christmas movie and I used the "if you always watch it at Christmas, it's a Christmas movie" line with them.
all through the video I assumed the disappearance of every other film but Star Wars had some intrinsic meaning I had missed, but no. No it did not
The Best Channels Cinematic Universe we deserve.
The Lord of the Rings trilogy Is a Christmas movie trilogy because it came out three Decembers in a row, hence becoming a 3-year going to the theater on christmas day tradition and then subsequently a rewatching LOTR on Christmas day tradition.
Yes. And recently the same thing has happened with Star Wars.
I went to see all 3 movies with my mom while waiting for dad to come home from work those Christmas days so we could "do Christmas"
YES. This was a huge deal in my family. Also, we had followed the development of the movie for YEARS before it came out, so it wasn’t just a three year thing for us.
Also, this was the first movie series to do this staggered or serial release (the next closest thing was Harry Potter, but the first one of those came out just a few months before Fellowship). It was almost like more than just movies. True story: I remember seeing some other movie in the theater in mid 2002 and a trailer for Two Towers played beforehand. I was so stoked that I immediately lost all interest in whatever movie I was there to see, thinking, “what’s the point?” and I legitimately felt bad for that movie itself that it wasn’t Two Towers. Today I have no recollection of what movie that was, poor thing.
Where I am from, they air the lotr trilogy around Christmas and New year so it has become a Christmas movie in my mind. It's now become a tradition for me and my brother to watch the movies once a year.
March 18th, 2021
Dear journal,
I came back again today on the channel, hopping as always to find some new content. My mind is starving and I feel like Folding Ideas is the empty fridge into which I keep looking, hoping that this time I'm gonna find something.
But I must admit that I'm a little worry now. You remember, dear Journal, when Dan made his video on Contagion, and then didn't published for months? I thought something bad had happen, even more so with the dark tone of the video. But I was wrong. Nothing bad had happen. He was gone on a journey, deep down into the Flat-Earth/Q-Anon rabbit hole and found there the colors for a new masterpiece. Those endeavors take time.
I comfort myself by imagining Dan in some deep, mindboggling train of thought, looking for the colors of his next chef d'oeuvre. I'm sure everything will be fine.
Also I watched WonderWoman 1984 today, but I would prefer not to talk about it.
Happy St. Patrick!
Your pen pal
1:21 Dan has really upped his blender game with this one
I can't stop thinking about how much I like your crown!
I always feel 10% smarter after watching your videos.
I've watched this video like three times and it's all nonsensical to me every time, just flies over my head, and I love it
Klaus is a good movie that is technically about Christmas and you can still watch it at any time of the year
"Die Hard is a Christmas movie" has gone from being a cute joke to an annoying unfunny bit every year
Yeah. I mean it's clearly obvious that Die Hard 2 is more of a Christmas movie than the first one
To you.
My mother made a point of including Die Hard and Die Hard 2 in our Christmas movie marathon.
It's a 20+ year tradition at this point
@@Feasco Someone's never seen Lethal Weapon
but that's not the reason why we watch die hard
the reason why we watch die hard is because is better watch die hard for the 100th time than watch any of those x-mas movies
And it gets annoying how people who don't like other people's choices in Christmas movies like to others down out of their personal annoyance.
For a number of years in the 90s and maybe even early 2000s Die Hard has been played on the evening on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day on free to air TV in Poland. Hence it became a Christmas movie.
End of Evangelion is my favorite Christmas movie.
Same!!!!!
This comment will not age well. Just wait for the new year and third impact.
I also want to let people know that my mom and I naturally and unironically took on diehard as our Christmas movie tradition. She likes to translate the German bits.
I'll say this: once I stopped school most of my time-sense became unmoored. Traditions like christmas are the only really signifiers of time passing
Thanks for this, Die Hard is legitimately my favorite Christmas movie.
Edit- excluding The Thin Man
The argument over Christmas movies has to be one of the most American things I've observed in my life. ;)
Jokes aside, I agree the argument has become some kind of ritual itself, a meme even if you will. But as an ESL let met tell you, this amuses me greatly because even before the argument became "a thing", I had ALWAYS been confused about what "Christmas movie" even MEANS. The way the phrase "Christmas movie" is formed makes the meaning ambiguous. Is it talking about the time the movie is watched or is it talking about the content of the movie? If I had to translate the phrase, I wouldn't know how, because each meaning would require a different structure in my first language! When you have a word with more than one meaning, what do you do? You use context - but I couldn't do that either because the answers I'd see people give were contradictory! I tried asking in a chatroom once when the internet was a young thing - it went as well as you expect lol.
I bet this whole argument started because people at some point realized there were two different ways to read that and started to try to convince others that their interpretation of the phrase is the right one (you know all that "the way *I* always heard it is B so obviously that's what it means, nobody would mean A that's ridiculous!" deal) and it evolved into finding the "right definition". And finding the right definition, as you said, it's impossible, because no definition will now cover all the films that are now considered "Christmas movies" .
I find something similar related to "Christmas songs". I was trying to create a list of 25 Christmas songs that -are bearable- don't suck and wouldn't let myself put "Walking in the Air" (Nightwish) and "Once Upon a December" (Anastasia soundtrack) on it because they 'weren't technically Christmas songs' ... but the standards "Winter Wonderland", "Let it Snow" and "Jingle Bells" don't mention anything related to Christmas at all, save for snow (and, I mean, not all places get snow for Christmas, even in the continental US). So why am I totally okay putting Straight No Chaser and Weird Al on the list, but not those^ two songs?
My friends and I have brute forced a tradition of watching Cats on the December full moon for the past four years. Cats is now a Christmas movie to us.
I don't think that it's simply a matter of semantics to differentiate between "what is your favorite Christmas movie?" and "what is your favorite movie to watch around Christmas?" For the latter, the holiday is simply coincidental; it provides us space to watch a movie that we enjoy, but that could be true for any arbitrary time of year at which we are able to watch that movie (with or without others).
1:16 I disagree with this basic idea. What defines a Christmas movie is, in fact, the focus on Christmas and it's surrounding trappings. A movie that you watch on or around Christmas is just a movie that you watch on or around Christmas. A Christmas movie is a movie that is intrinsically about Christmas in some way. And yes, movies about in-universe versions of equivalent holidays, like The Hogfather, count as Christmas movies.
"it's an inherently trivial question with non-existent stakes."
(cut to Dan waking up in the SAW bathroom)
Tbh for me die hard has become my favourite Christmas movie, it was one of my favourite movies when I watched it for the first time and years later when conversation started about it being the best Christmas movie around Christmas time that year it actually caused me to re-watch it, and since then watching all 3 movies (there are only 3 in my head cannon) has become an annual ritual for me that continues to this day. It's not a Christmas movie to me in the traditional sense of it being about Christmas or the spirit of Christmas, but rather a movie that for me has become associated with the time of year and that just brings me a lot of joy and allows me for a few hours to forget all the shitty things in my life and the world we live on.
And this is why Aardmans Chicken Run is a Christmas movie
In this 37 part comment I will
The chickens are revolting!
This video is my favourite Christmas movie. I watch it every year and it really puts me in the mood to drink wine and argue with my brother over turkey dinner.
Only partly trolling here, but honestly my strange family watched "The Lion in Winter" at Christmas. And yes it takes place at that time. Not my favorite Christmas movie but it was traditional for us.
We watch Lion in Winter every Christmas morning in this household as well and we’re better off for it! It’s got family drama, Christmas, Gregorian chant music, and backstabbing. Totally Christmas
@@kahoots7724
"What's this?"
(Henry picks up a large wrapped parcel from beneath the tree and examines the tag)
"To Henry."
(He hefts it)
"Heavy."
(He grins and laughs)
"It's my tombstone! Elanor, you spoil me!"
Everyone knows Die Hard started out as a Pagan Festival.
just got done with my family's holiday tradition of ordering pizza and watch Muppet Treasure Island, the best Christmas musical ever written
This is my favorite Christmas movie.
If only my enjoyment of Die Hard didn't prevent me from loving more socially-acceptable Christmas movies, including (but not limited to) Home Alone, The Muppets Christmas Carol, It's A Wonderful Life, Tokyo Godfathers, Gremlins, Krampus, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation, and Jingle All The Way.
Damn these things being mutually exclusive events!
Our “Christmas movie” this year is the Harry Potter series of movies.
Funny enough, a tradition in my family is to watch Troy every thanksgiving. Idk, I guess while eating turkey there’s nothing better than watching people cut and slice each other up.
My goal for this Christmas is to make watching The Thing a tradition.
Many years ago, I read someone ranting around the time of the Super Bowl that "talking about sportsball doesn't make you clever!" Watching your video, I realize it's the same thing as counterpicking a Christmas movie. I'm not trying for "clever" (and, personally, I spend about as much energy on "sportsball" as I do on sports), I'm just making my tiny stand against the monolith of "ARE YOU READY FOR SOME FOOTBALL and/or ADS?!?!!" And I'm not. Tah dah!
Thanks for giving the words to what I've been thinking about that ever since. Cheers!
6:11
my brain's *immediate and only* reaction to this was a loud and triumphant 'homestuck is my favorite anime'
Yes the Folding Ideas Christmas special! Hope you survived the awful blizzard we had recently if you're still in southern 'Berta
The Dan & Mikey Christmas Special is my new favorite Christmas movie.
Another factor to making counter-picks in this case may also be, that "good" Christmas movies are by design saccharine and often trite, separate from quality, the need to counter-pick may be a rebellion against that rather than the greater social inertia of christmas.
Wolf of Wall Street. My wife and I will watch it around Christmas every year. It's just our thang.
but... Die Hard isnt a troll. Maybe it was a troll*, but many, many people seriously sit down and watch Die Hard at Christmas. They are not just saying Die Hard to get a rise out of people, it is a literal part of their tradition and is often said more based on the idea of 'Arnt we wacky in our traditions.' than 'Thisll show those people with traditions.'
So I dont really see the argument playing out quite like this video suggests it does.
-
*Although, I actually thought it became a Christmas movie less because people were trolling and more because a bunch of TV stations put it out at Christmas year after year, and it kind of grew from movie on at Christmas because of its setting in to a full blown Christmas movie.
Die Hard is also about the importance of connecting with family and the folly of chasing only material things....
My brothers and I used to get together and watch Die Hard at Christmas time cause we love action movies, and Die Hard checks both Christmas and Action movie boxes.
I also watch Gremlins are Christmas cause I love horror and it does the same thing.
This was a really good video, actually touched on multiple things that have been kicking through my head (the Die Hard Christmas Movie discourse, practical utility of rituals, etc.). I wanna add a few things here:
>I don't think everyone that gives out "Die Hard" as their favourite Christmas movie is intending to be subversive or give a "troll" answer, that may have been largely true back when folks started claiming it but the concept of Die Hard as a Christmas movie has persisted long enough that I think a lot of people very sincerely think of it as Christmas movie without any sort of subtext or sarcasm
>For those that give a "troll" answer to the question of their favourite movie, I think it also serves as a way of subverting the cultural monolith of Christmas while also still engaging with it. It lets you take a couple jabs at the ritual while still acknowledging the ritual as valid and worth observing.
A Matter Of Life And Death is a very strong example of a film which *feels* incredibly Christmasy and yet actually has nothing whatsoever to do with Christmas
My favorite christmas movie is season 2 episode 11 of Community: _Abed's Uncontrollable Christmas_ It teaches us that "The meaning of christmas is the idea that the idea that christmas has meaning." which ties beautifully into this video.
I love Dan. This is a short and sweet example of why this channel is so good.
When asked "what's your favorite Christmas movie", I don't answer Die Hard to be funny, I answer Die Hard because my family has gotten together to watch it on either Christmas Day or Christmas Eve every year for as long as I've been alive (maybe longer). It was the first Christmas movie I ever saw. For the 19 years I have been on this Earth, Christmas has been defined by Die Hard, not the other way around.
I greatly enjoy that you've utilized my favourite meme format in a long while.
in his light, easy-hearted, thirteen-minute, holiday-season video -- christmas movies and clowning hat -- this man says "this is where we get into the dueling desires of the human psyche", and we all say "sure do!"
We all know that Batman vs superman is best christmas movie. For while your spirit will be lowered when watching it. It has no where to go but up once its over.
Isn’t that more of an Easter movie?
Umm blasphemy!
That opening graphic is genuinely festive, jolly, and nice. I'm going to have to deduct three ironic snark points.
Die Hard was not a Christmas movie when it was released. It is one now.
Groovy video, you da Man