Overlooked Xmas Movie Night

Koolhoven & Simons pick up the pieces of December – not only the darkest month of the year, but one inevitably full of families feuding around a burned-out Christmas tree, hangovers not even Jesus could cure and new year’s resolutions that look decidedly shaky even before 1 January has arrived. With the Overlooked Xmas Movie Night, Koolhoven & Simons show us that there is hope in the cinematic firmament yet, even after all the jingle bells, artificial snow and overheated glühwein.

We warm up with the trailers for Gremlins, Batman Returns, Tommy, Rocky 5, Edward Scissorhands and Invasion U.S.A., after which ultra-hardboiled detectives Fred and Tony wash all the scum off the streets of a wintry Rome in Ruggero Deodato’s Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man.

Seen all the Christmassy clips? Then it’s time for the main feature, action classic Die Hard (John McTiernan, 1988, on 35mm from the Eye collection). New York cop John McClane (Bruce Willis) travels to a Christmas party in the Los Angeles skyscraper where his wife works. Unfortunately, a gang of terrorists led by German Hans Gruber is planning a Christmas Eve kidnap/robbery. A refreshing antidote to a Glühwein-drenched kitschy Christmas.