But is it a Holiday movie?

Gather round my children and I’ll tell you a tale of a Christmas past. It was a cold winter’s night, over 30 years ago, when a wife called her husband and asked him to pick up a holiday movie from Blockbuster (remember that place?) while on his way home. When he arrived she was rather angry “Die Hard?” she proclaimed “Why that’s not a Christmas movie!” He replied “Sure it is, sit down and we’ll watch and you’ll see, it’s clearly a Christmas film”. And ever since then people have been having the same argument, is Die Hard a Christmas movie?

As time went by people decided to amp up the argument by claiming “well, if Die Hard is a Christmas movie so is Lethal Weapon”. This one took me back a bit and I had to go check out the film because I didn’t remember anything about Christmas in the movie and sure enough, it takes place during the holiday season, however I am firmly entrenched in the "Die Hard is a Christmas film whereas Lethal Weapon isn’t" camp. Back and forth, up and down, round and round there hasn’t been a solution to this age old argument, until now. Yes, using my overwhelming sense of logic and reason I came up with the ultimate solution and not just for these two films but for any film someone wants to claim is a holiday movie. 

So, to figure out if a movie is a Christmas movie you can apply the August the 13th test. You take the overall plot of the film and shift it from the specific holiday to the middle of the summer month, the month with the least number of holidays. In fact between July 4th and Labor Day there are zero federal holidays on the calendar. So take your film and drop it in the middle of the no holiday season and see if the plot has little or no changes, or does it require a major rewrite.

Lets start with Lethal Weapon. The general plot of the film (spoiler alert) is a woman jumped (?) to her death from a hotel balcony, an autopsy shows that she had a lethal combination of drugs in her system and her father suspects that she was pushed in order to keep him quite. He contacts his old friend detective Roger Murtaugh to investigate, however Murtaugh has just been saddled with a new partner, Martin Riggs, an office who just lost his wife and now has a death wish. As the two dig deeper into the case they find themselves up against ex CIA operatives running an international drug smuggling operation. And of course chaos ensues. Now, take this plot and drop it into the middle of August and what changes. Well, only one scene, the tree lot drug deal. This could easily be shifted to a junk yard, or a warehouse or a seedy alley and it doesn't really change much. Other than that, the film is the exact same regardless of when it takes place. So, according to the August the 13th test Lethal Weapon is not a Christmas movie.

Now on to Die Hard. The plot is New York City cop John McClane is flying out to California to meet with his estranged wife Holly to decide of they are going to take the next step, try to reconcile or start the divorce proceedings. He meets her at an office party that just happens to be raided by Hans Gruber and his mercenaries, who have come to rob the vault at Nakatomi Plaza. Chaos ensues and of course there is a bloody and happy ending. So what happens when we drop the story into August 13th? Well.

Number One, why is John flying cross country? You’d have to come up with some reason why the couple chose August 13h. Would the audience have the same connection to a random date or some random family event rather than Christmas? Probably not.

Number Two, why is Nakatomi Plaza empty except for the party? I mean if it was August 13th other people would still be at work. In the scene where John Meets Hans we see a directory board that shows that offices on multiple floors are occupied. If it was August 13th other people would have been there, some company going over the books or trying to close the big deal, construction workers trying to meet their deadline on the building construction so they don’t lose out on the big bonus, heck the place should be crawling with the cleaning crew but nobody other than the party goers are in the building. And why? Because it’s Christmas and everyone went home. If this film took place in the middle of summer you’d have to come up with a really good excuse for the empty building.

Number Three, the party. Yep, you’d have to come up with a reason why the company was holding an elaborate party for their employees. I guess you could say they closed a big merger but would everyone show up for that? And would Hans have known about the party with enough time to put together his crew and come up with his plan to rob the vault? It would have to be something he knew was going to happen well in advance and if the Nakatomi Corporation held an annual Christmas party for the staff he would have his optimal date and time to hit the building. Trying to plan a last minute robbery on a party you were only sure was going to take place a week or so in advance, and be guaranteed the rest of the building was empty, would have been impossible.

Number Four, Now I Have A Machine Gun, Happy August 13th. Yeah, it just doesn’t work.

Number Five, how John concealed the gun for the exciting conclusion. He finds Hans holding Holly hostage and only has two bullets left so he can’t go rushing in randomly firing, he has to get close to his targets, he tapes a gun to his back and walks in with his hands on his head. So where did he get the tape? From a gift wrapping cart that had been left near the vault, yep some employee went to a spot in the building where they wouldn’t be seen wrapping last minuet gifts. You’d have to come up with an excuse why John was able to find some tape conveniently left near the vault and it would result in movie audiences saying “yeah, right, they just happened to leave tape laying around in this otherwise empty space”. By the way, it was Christmas tape.

Number Six, the demise of Hans Gruber. When John arrives at Nakatomi Plaza Harry Ellis is quick to point out Holly’s bonus, a Rolex watch. At the end of the movie Hans has a grip on Holly by her watch and is going to shoot John, until John undoes the strap and Hans drops to his death. So, if this was August 13th you’d have to come up with a reason why the company gave Holly the watch. Sure you could say it was for closing a big deal but again, would the audience identify with it? A year end, dare we say Christmas bonus has a bigger impact on the story than just some random “good job” gift. In the end it was, yes, a Christmas present that saved the day.

So, if you move Lethal Weapon to August 13th there is no difference. If you move Die Hard to August 13th it requires a major rewrite and a justification for events and the character’s actions. The conclusion is straightforward, Lethal Weapon, not a Christmas movie, Die Hard, most definitely a Christmas movie. And in the future when some says “Movie X is a (specific Holiday) movie I plan to apply the August 13th test to either agree with them or to prove them wrong so I can stand over them, pointing at them and derisively laughing. Now I’m looking forward to the acton movie set on National Bowling Day.

 Shouting into the void.

It's been 11 years since I've blogged, since I feel the need to record my thoughts in essay form. Why? Twitter, I could express myself on a variety of topics from entertainment to politics and I didn't have to do a lot of writing,  just a few quick sentences and then send it out into the universe, to be attacked by bots and trolls. But that was then and this is now, changes are a-coming and they aren't good ones.

The big question is, why did Elon Musk spend $44 billion to buy Twitter? What is his endgame? Over the past few weeks the answer has become clearer, and scarier. Being on twitter is about to become a pointless endeavor. I plan to keep my account active, since he says he'll ban inactive accounts but at the most I will be tweeting a lot less, and using that formally wasted time to blog. So, what is Musk's bigger plan? 

To start why did Twitter become so popular? The answer is the celebrity certification system. On MySpace and Facebook you could never be sure the celebrity account you were following was really that celebrity and not just some scammer. People loved the illusion of having one on one encounters with their favorite famous person. And the death of a celebrity, either real or premature resulted in a flood of grief notices. With every new verified celebrity Twitter traffic increased.

Second, shared experiences. In days of old if you wanted to share the moment with friends and family you had to invite them to your house, serve snacks and such and hope that they would go home after a reasonable amount of time. All of this changed during Super Bowl XXXVIII and the infamous "Nip Slip".  Millions of people were on line during the show and Twitter lit up with comments about Janet Jackson and the sudden exposure. After that live tweeting became a common thing, tv shows would actively promote their hashtag encouraging the conversation, and sometimes would even alter storylines when there were a lot of complaints about the way the narrative was running. "Spoiler Alert" became part of the lexicon as a result of live tweeting and the sharing of entertainment information, all from the comfort of your living room, alone, not having to clean up after a whole group of people.

Live news. In January of 1991 the United States, and the coalition, started a bombing campaign in Iraq. A group of CNN journalists in a hotel in Baghdad began shooting live footage of the impact (the military was watching to check the accuracy of their strikes) and millions of people watched. In April of 2013 two individuals set off a bomb at the Boston Marathon, several days later the police were in a shootout and hot pursuit of one of the subjects. During this time CNN was running a program on muffin recipes while millions were getting live updates from eye witnesses who were tweeting the entire event. Delayed tv journalism had been replaced by on the spot citizen reporting unfiltered news.

The 2020 election. In 2016 with the rise of Trump Twitter took a negative turn with the flood of disinformation from propaganda companies. The site was overrun with bot and trolls either promoting propaganda or harassing those who put out genuine information. The company was flooded with complaints and soon began to change their policies, by 2020 they began to wholesale block those who actively and knowingly spread false information from politics to Covid. In the end both the 2020 and 2024 elections saw a lot more genuine information about candidates rather than the hate spew from partisan accounts (on both sides by the way). Twitter seemed to be improving after a few dark years.

But then came Musk who for some reason was willing to throw away $44 billion on an app worth far less. Why would he go so deep into debt and then actively set out to destroy that very site? I have a speculation on why and how he plans to do it, and in the end make his money back.

Step one of Musk's plan, eliminate the blue checkmark certification of real celebrity accounts. Most celebrities are "them liberals" and promote liberal ideals. Once Musk takes away that safety net anyone can claim to be anyone and for $8 a month can have a blue checkmark next to their name. The site will be overrun with fake accounts operated by scammers and propagandists. Real celebrities will become frustrated with the number of clone accounts and start to quit. Once the celebrity aspect is gone their followers will soon follow. 

Step two, allow bots to flood the site. Musk will allow bots to swarm on the site promoting right wing political propaganda and harass anyone who counters their claims. Reporting these accounts will be a waste of time and anyone who fights back will be reported as "harassing" the bots and their accounts will be blocked or outright banned instead. Communication on Twitter will become one sided and the free exchange of ideas will come to an end.

Step three, block or shadow ban any information that runs counter to Musk's political ideology. We've already seen the start of this when people demonstrated the flaws in Musk's blue checkmark scheme by changing their names to "Elon Musk" and tweeting troll comments. He started blocking any account that used his name, but continue to ignore accounts that used other celebrities names. Then came the video of Musk being booed when he went on stage. Any time these videos popped up on twitter they were quickly blocked. You can expect more of this in the future, anything Musk doesn't like will be blocked or banned. The era of the free and fair exchange of ideas on Twitter is over.

This will clearly kill Twitter. Spambots, disinformation, blocking of information, no dissent allowed, within a year the site will become a ghost town and a noble experiment in total free speech will come to an end, and Musk (and his backers) will be out $44 billion dollars, or will he? The endgame of all this is to win the 2024 election and once extremist Republicans are fully in power they will award Space X, Musk's company, a major government grant to aid towards the eventual colonization of Mars, a large grant, perhaps a $50 billion + grant. One of the ideals of Nazi Germany was "control the messenger, control the message", Musk plans on controlling any and all messages on Twitter thus promoting disinformation, propaganda and the harassment of anyone who counters these claims with facts. And in the end he'll be rewarded for his loyalty. So RIP Twitter, you were sacrificed to the propaganda gods.