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Using data to determine if Die Hard is a Christmas movie

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Re: Using data to determine if Die Hard is a Christmas movie

#41

Post by dylan604 »

nhebb wrote: post #37
paganel wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The author lost me when he said that “Last Action Hero” is not a great movie, so I wouldn’t take anything he writes about movies as serious. John McTiernan is a genius.

I never understood why that movie bombed. 1993 was a huge year for blockbuster movies, so I think it just got lost in the shuffle. Anyway, underrated flick.

It's a Hollywood story cliche. There are so many continuity problems in that movie, but if I recall, they were designed to be that way. Here's a decent write up about the whole preposterous nature of the movie: https://film.avclub.com/why-last-action-hero-failed-and-why-...

Re: Using data to determine if Die Hard is a Christmas movie

#42

Post by naasking »

klyrs wrote: post #34
porpoisely wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those are excellent points, but keep in mind that a lot of people define christmas movie as something that both adults and children can watch together. So that makes die hard a hard sell for a lot of families. For me, any movie set in or around christmas qualifies as a christmas movie and my favorite christmas movies are "die hard", "home alone 1 and 2" and "scrooged". They all represent the redeeming christmas spiri…

> Those are excellent points, but keep in mind that a lot of people define christmas movie as something that both adults and children can watch together Rare Exports is undeniably a Christmas movie. One that you should definitely watch, but only after the little ones have gone to bed.

Good example. Also, Bad Santa.

Re: Using data to determine if Die Hard is a Christmas movie

#43

Post by klyrs »

naasking wrote: post #42
klyrs wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Those are excellent points, but keep in mind that a lot of people define christmas movie as something that both adults and children can watch together Rare Exports is undeniably a Christmas movie. One that you should definitely watch, but only after the little ones have gone to bed.

Good example. Also, Bad Santa.

Okay okay, I saw that name in another comment... but now I'll seek it out 'cause I know you've seen Rare Exports and that's still your favorite.

Re: Using data to determine if Die Hard is a Christmas movie

#44

Post by toyg »

combatentropy wrote: post #39

Talk about overthinking it! This thread highlights the recurrent conflict that arises because my Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ, but most programmers are not. To me a Christmas movie is a movie with the spirit of Christmas running through it, however weakly. Another definition I have is this. A Christmas movie is a movie that is fun to watch around Christmas. Die Hard meets both of these definitions. Die Hard…

> It's a movie more for people who are sick of the normal Christmas movies and want a break.

Wat? For me it was just the constant TV reruns at Christmas that did it, like with Trading Places and Groundhog Day. It just does not feel like Christmas until Hans Gruber falls from Nakatomi Plaza and Billie-Ray Valentine sells OJ futures.

Do we really have to slap labels on everything?

Re: Using data to determine if Die Hard is a Christmas movie

#45

Post by toyg »

cptaj wrote: post #12
avar wrote: post #4

This is only an argument because of different ways of defining what a "Christmas movie" is, which aren't mutually exclusive: a) Whether the movie is unambiguously set during Christmas, and if so whether that's clearly an artistic choice, or as much of a coincidence as a movie that has nothing to do with the weather being set in the summer or winter. b) Whether the movie is aimed at the "Christmas movie market". I.e.…

Also C: Its a christmas movie if we all decide it is. If it becomes one more of the christmas-centric traditions, then it becomes a christmas movie.

This is the correct answer. It's why people look for chocolate eggs left by a rabbit when they are supposedly celebrating the death and resurrection of the son of god, or why kids get gifts from a old obese man when they are supposedly celebrating the birth of that same godly spawn - rationalisations were innested on activities that people already enjoyed for one reason or another.

People turn things into traditions simply because they like doing them with some fixed cadence. The rationalisations tend to flow in later.

Re: Using data to determine if Die Hard is a Christmas movie

#46

Post by clubm8 »

combatentropy wrote: post #39

Talk about overthinking it! This thread highlights the recurrent conflict that arises because my Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ, but most programmers are not. To me a Christmas movie is a movie with the spirit of Christmas running through it, however weakly. Another definition I have is this. A Christmas movie is a movie that is fun to watch around Christmas. Die Hard meets both of these definitions. Die Hard…

>Talk about overthinking it! This thread highlights the recurrent conflict that arises because my Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ, but most programmers are not.

Meyers-Briggs has a number of issues[1] and is frankly, unscientific. But because it uses a survey, it evokes feelings of rigor. Sometimes I feel that engineers are so obsessed with rigor, they'd rather use a solution that is wrong but "goes through the motions" than a simpler solution.

For example, whether something is a a "Christmas Movie" is at it's heart, a matter of opinion. To answer it, simple polling a diverse sample of the US population could answer the question. But that's not a "sexy" answer - we want to buy into this idea of One Ground Truth that if we only framed our experiment perfectly, we can uncover.

The real truth is that qualitative research is messy. Doing a "good" job is easy, but doing a "great" job is a still unsolved problem... and sadly all to often we choose the appearance of rigor over actual useful research.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Myers%E2%80%93Briggs_Type_Indi...

Re: Using data to determine if Die Hard is a Christmas movie

#47

Post by adjkant »

combatentropy wrote: post #39

Talk about overthinking it! This thread highlights the recurrent conflict that arises because my Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ, but most programmers are not. To me a Christmas movie is a movie with the spirit of Christmas running through it, however weakly. Another definition I have is this. A Christmas movie is a movie that is fun to watch around Christmas. Die Hard meets both of these definitions. Die Hard…

> my Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ, but most programmers are not.

Aren't most programmers INTJ? Debate about MBTI aside, that's really not much of a difference...

Re: Using data to determine if Die Hard is a Christmas movie

#48

Post by kbrosnan »

dgellow wrote: post #20
porphyrogene wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The joke was popularized by an American TV show. It’s become one of those things people know they can trot out for easy upvotes, likes, etc. Most Christmas movies are family-oriented but Die Hard is an action movie so saying it’s one’s favorite Christmas movie is meant to demonstrate the distinctiveness of one’s personality. It’s like how people made jokes about sporks and “le earth”. Maybe in a few years it’ll come…

> It’s like how people made jokes about [...] “le earth” What is that?

A corruption of "but i am le tired." A line from a flash video from a site called Albino Blacksheep. Called 'THE END OF ZE WORLD' by Jason Windsor in 2003. ABS was known for flash videos/animations (occasional theft of content from other creators) and attracting a juvenile/college audience

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=84Ud3V9NPw8

Re: Using data to determine if Die Hard is a Christmas movie

#49

Post by lowercased »

adjkant wrote: post #47
combatentropy wrote: post #39

Talk about overthinking it! This thread highlights the recurrent conflict that arises because my Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ, but most programmers are not. To me a Christmas movie is a movie with the spirit of Christmas running through it, however weakly. Another definition I have is this. A Christmas movie is a movie that is fun to watch around Christmas. Die Hard meets both of these definitions. Die Hard…

> my Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ, but most programmers are not. Aren't most programmers INTJ? Debate about MBTI aside, that's really not much of a difference...

Spoken like a true T...

Re: Using data to determine if Die Hard is a Christmas movie

#50

Post by Waterluvian »

clubm8 wrote: post #46
combatentropy wrote: post #39

Talk about overthinking it! This thread highlights the recurrent conflict that arises because my Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ, but most programmers are not. To me a Christmas movie is a movie with the spirit of Christmas running through it, however weakly. Another definition I have is this. A Christmas movie is a movie that is fun to watch around Christmas. Die Hard meets both of these definitions. Die Hard…

>Talk about overthinking it! This thread highlights the recurrent conflict that arises because my Myers-Briggs personality type is INFJ, but most programmers are not. Meyers-Briggs has a number of issues[1] and is frankly, unscientific. But because it uses a survey, it evokes feelings of rigor. Sometimes I feel that engineers are so obsessed with rigor, they'd rather use a solution that is wrong but "goes through the…

Surely the parent comment is making a joke of some sort. Just reading that sentence, I cannot escape a strong feeling of satire.
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