A Christmas film to cherish

Watched Die Hard on the big screen for the first time.  For one night only, the Odeon were screening this 1980s 'Christmas' classic.  Prepared to pay full-price for it, the ticket was actually a very reasonable £5.  It was on one of the smaller screens in the multiplex but that did not diminish its impact and I had only come across it by chance scrolling through the list of films for this Tuesday (yesterday).
Considering how flabby future editions of the series got, one is tempted to regard this as a standalone effort, especially given the horrific injuries John McClane suffers that would see him almost permanently off active-duty or out of the picture altogether (and there doesn't seem to be any intimation that he will be going to hospital as the end credits roll).  Bruce Willis (with hair!) really inhabits the role, compared to the way he telephoned it in (or when in Russia, telexed it in) later.  Though I've seen it  more than a few times - the high-octane action and insistent score are made even more absorbing when shown as it was meant to be.
There are all the great scenes, such as the Rolex given to Holly McClane by her company, which Hans Gruber holds onto at the last - in essence the company is killing her and John's unfastening of the clasp to send Gruber to his death, symbolically breaks her loose from the company.  There is also John's contemptuous remark about glass that comes back to haunt this bare-footed warrior.  Of course, there are the flaws (e.g. Argyll breaks out of the undergound car park but neglects to tell the police of an unconscious bad guy still in the bay; a bullet impact to an admittedly grievously wounded villain to the very extremity of his shoulder is enough to take him down; John kills other 'terrorists' but only - we see - tries on the shoes of the first one he bumps off; Merrill Lynch signage on the supposedly Nakatomi Corporation tower, etc.)  but they are almost to be celebrated in their own way as going to make up this great film.  There are also a few scenes that don't really add to the plot (and I had forgotten) but as I've said it's all part of the fun - the gunman waiting around the corner before Sgt Al Powell (Reginald Veljohnson) turns around and heads back to reception; the woman in a state of undress in a tower across the way that gives John a tension-reducing few seconds.
A lot of guys working on this project cut their teeth here and went on to dominate Hollywood in the 1990s.  Leaving aside John McTiernan as director, you have Jan de Bont (e.g. Speed) as director of photography and Joel Silver (e.g. The Rock) also involved in production.  Andreas Wisniewski is fresh from Timothy Dalton's 007 debut in The Living Daylights and Robert Davi would soon be appearing in Dalton's valedictory Bond Licence to Kill.  Naturally, Alan Rickman is electrifying as a the dastardly mastermind Gruber.  After Richard E Grant pulled out of playing the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, would Rickman have got the part had he not been so compelling here (in what is arguably still a silver screen career-defining performance).  All in all, an outstanding film, with no substitute for it being on the big screen.