Arguments in favor of identifying “Die Hard” as a Christmas movie include the film being set on Christmas Eve, during a Christmas party, where a group of terrorists take hostages in the Los Angeles skyscraper. Off-duty police officer McClane then takes on the terrorists, and the rest of the film follows the general three-act script of any action film to its conclusion.
In November, Netflix dropped director Jerry Ciccoritti’s “Hot Frosty”—such a fetchingly oxymoronic title—and this reviewer predicts that, for years to come, holiday audiences will be warming up to this tour-de-force film the moment after the Thanksgiving turkey hits the fridge.
To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about the resurgence of the mustache. While I’m vehemently opposed to the revival of the mullet—which I shamelessly flaunted long after the trend originally passed—I’m ambivalent about the mustache.
For those of you who were too busy stuffing your gullets Thursday and may have missed the news, Vito the pug pulled off an epic upset at The Kennel Club in Philadelphia and was named “Best in Show,” the first pug to win the award since humans started broadcasting the competition in 2002.
Speaking of relatives, I’ve long wondered if luck—good or bad—might also be hereditary. To my knowledge, scientists have yet to isolate a “luck” gene, but I’m sure that we can all probably name a few families who seem to have an inordinate amount of luck—horseshoes up the keister—as well as some families who seem downright snakebitten.
In an attempt to preserve my liver and my mental well-being, I’ve decided to take a “time out” from any media reporting on Trump, or the imminent plans to exact Project 2025, or the apparently inevitable demise of democracy.
In my own attempt to make sense of this, I went for a long walk in the woods—maybe channeling my inner-Wordsworth—the day after the election. For some reason, the lyrics to Bruce Springsteen’s “Independence Day”—from his 1980 album “The River”—kept playing in my head.
But we, liberals and conservatives alike, should never dehumanize each other. We need to keep in mind—regardless of the result on Tuesday, or Wednesday morning, or two weeks from Tuesday when all of the votes are finally counted—that ideological differences don’t make us enemies, at least not in a democracy.
When I reflect on October 27, 2004, exactly two decades ago today, it’s not hyperbolic to say that as a lifelong Red Sox fan, it was one of the happiest days of my life when they ended the 86-year “Curse of The Bambino.”
I’m talking, of course, about demonic possession. If a character is possessed by a demonic spirit, I’m out. If a ouija board is in any way part of the mise en scène, I’m also out. Demonic possession is a surefire way to freak out a Catholic—even a lapsed-Catholic, like me.