KJB Holiday Special 4: Die Hard 4.0 Live Free or Die Hard

Raising my "let Gwen watch the other die hards" sign and waving it around emphatically. Also, as a genuine man who isn't Trans (I think), thank you for continuing to hammer that "masculinity doesn't have to mean violence" button. Keep up the good work and have a safe and happy 2026.

I’m a straight man in my late 40’s and a USMC vet. I grew up around tough men who were farmers and veterans. Thankfully they were also shockingly enlightened for their time and supported encouraged their wives to pursue higher education, even with small kids in the house. Hearing Abby talk about how the value of men can be separate from violence really struck me. I’d never hear it spoken out loud and I appreciate it. KJB, WTYP, and LLBD have brought so much joy and laughter and knowledge into my life. KJB in particular has enlightened me in regard to the trans community and made me more aware and definitely more supportive. I’m an armed ally, and I’m peaceful, not harmless. I hope the new year brings you joy and happiness and love. Dad hugs to you all!

i stumbled onto that flyleaf song today

Not November dissing the movie I lovingly pitched as a bridge between heist & hacker season. Aka the 2001 John Travolta led masterpiece "Swordfish"

Ballerina is good! Ballerina is good! Do see Ballerina.

Where is the best place to recommend a movie to these fabulous folks?

Please do the 2001 Tomb Raider movie. It's a heist, it's terrible, It's tangentially related to a culturally-important piece of media, and it features an alarmingly-young Daniel Craig.

The 9/11 hijackers all won the Kronsteen rosette. Four of them did so with distinction.

Idk where to post this but you all HAVE GOT to get to Polar Express (2004). A baffling film, featuring (I'm not even really exaggerating) an army of middle aged bald genderfluid elves from Brooklyn and a fucking Elf Hyperloop. I'll leave it at that.

I am so psyched for drunk Diamonds are Forever with no notes.

Abby's thesis on why computers are gay actually blew my mind

It’s canonical that all Die Hard movies were adapted from unrelated scripts. Before computers existed the word described the women who worked for large companies adding up endless columns of figures. The computer has always been female.

1024 bit encryption is totally standard and used by RSA

On paper, this one is probably the closest to the original Die Hard of all the sequels. A group of well-supplied, technically savvy international (but mostly European) criminals disguises their heist as a terrorist attack to exploit the US government's automatic responses. Unfortunately, they didn't count on John McClane, a cop from out of state who happened to be around while (poorly) trying to paper things over with an estranged family member who has changed her last name to Genaro (who is later discovered and menaced by the main villain).

As one of the cis men listening to this podcast, I want to say: There are dozens of us! Dozens!

In 2025, someone sends you a bunch of unusually large RAM bricks from some ‘C4’ company you’ve never heard of, you don’t ask too many questions

The commentary about the fight with the woman got me to thinking. When it comes down to hand to hand, how often do you see women being able to go toe to toe with men in movies? Whenever a woman is fighting a man, it's almost always with some kind of martial art. Like a woman can't fight 'honestly', so they have to use a kind of 'trick', whereas the men tend to use something more plain and brutish, relying on stamina or power. I've seen women lay men out by just punching them in the face so.

I wrote an essay along the lines of of abbi's "computers are gay and the patriarchy wants to be able to abuse them like women" about how the rogue computer trope often hits a lot of the same beats as, or even directly uses the language of, the "mad woman" or "crazy housewife" tropes

If AI could generate movies, this is the kind of movie it would generate.

The operative opens November's computer to put the C4 in and is killed instantly when the drives all fall out and crush him

Chekov’s sexual harassment

During the "here's why computers are gay" speech i was waiting for the "computer used to be a job title that women mostly had" fact, which really wraps this up cleanly. (That's true, right? I wasn't lied to?)

This movie ran in syndication on cable channels like FX for like 5 years straight through the early 2010s. As one of the 5 cis men mentioned, I fortunately only remembered Timothy Olyphant and the F35 scene.

P*rn audio in one ear and the Bible in Chinese in the other I think is 100% something I would listen to and half the European industrial bands I listen to would probably do or have it done

Nooooo November's computer is not fixed yet girl's going to give me a heart attack

I go back to this essay a lot to explain Boomer Media but IN PARTICULAR about how the jokey everyman John McClaine becomes the roid'ed mean cop of this movie (short version: boomer guys got old just in time for 9/11) https://keithpille.com/tom-clancy-and-the-dubious-comfort-of-boomer-dads/

am I the only person who thought The Single Frame of Kate Beckinsale was Mia Mulder?

FYI all, this is the movie that gave John McClane a real AO3 presence!!

Balerina IMDB trivia: "According to the Wrap, Chad Stahelski reshot most of the film after disapproving of Len Wiseman's original cut."

I was a CS major in college when this came out so it was extra insufferable for me

I saw this in theaters, and I think it ended up being the only die hard movie I saw for a long time, because I assumed they were all that bad

Merry Christmas, ya filthy animals. Also, you better be ready to bust out the hard liquor for next year because Die Hard 5 is genuinely extremely awful with very few redeeming qualities. The only amusing trivia I can have about it is that the films co-lead with Bruce Willis, Jai Courtney, is from the same suburb as I am, so it's very possible I might run into him at some point and get to make fun of him in real life for being the touch of death for so many film franchises.

“I hope they keep making underworld” PLEASE do underworld for Halloween, I Beg

lol I remember seeing this as a teenager and having that masculinity stuff at the end strike me as so weird and regressive and more overt than other similarly structured things that it basically cued me up to work out like half the content of a feminist film theory introductory module from first principles. Sometimes it's just that obvious!

In The Office (US), there's a storyline where Michael Scott has to work at a call center as a second job because he's in debt. he talks to a rapt audience of his coworkers about how this movie is a betrayal of the earlier themes of the Die Hard movies

This is the only episode of Kill James Bond I've ever heard, and I've heard it 3 times! 👍

I'm yet only a girlfriend and not a wife, but I do love Flyleaf

Abi is right that this wasn't originally written as a Die Hard movie, but that's not really the problem. Only one of the Die Hard movies was written as a Die Hard movie, and that episode of the podcast isn't for another year.

Oh cool! Funny thing this was the first Die Hard I ever saw at like, ten. Didn't know it was part of a series, I thought it was just a random action movie my parents friend who lived in a trailer in our driveway put on one day.

November's wife having only seen this Die Hard is like how the only Fast and Furious that I've seen is Tokyo Drift, lol. Although, I've only seen it once. EDIT: I want someone to sit every right-wing American down and explain in excruciating detail but simple words precisely what the song "Fortunate Song" means. EDIT 2: As a cis male, I appreciated when Abby turned to the camera and told me directly that I don't have to be a violent meathead. I wasn't gonna anyway, but it's nice to have my life choices validated, lol.

Is this where I request KJB do “Source Code” (2011)? (Merry Bondmas <3)

Wrt fortunate son, its actually a song about how much getting drafted to Vietnam sucks and you wish you could be a "fortunate son" that can use money or positioning to dodge the draft, but it has of course been coopted by all kinds of pro war stuff.

I've never seen this one. If Die Hard had me at yippie ki a motherfucker, they lost me at 4.0.

KJB's 4 other male fans, sound off! lol

Mid-listen, November said "John McClane and the hacker" and I instantly thought about Bruce Willis covering Miss Kittin and the Hacker.

I don’t think it is sweet that Holly asked them to call her dad, I found it very frustrating, particularly the way that they really zoom in on her face so you know how important it is that she’s saying it. She starts out the movie completely reasonably upset at her estranged father stalking her to her college campus, violently interrupting a private moment, manhandling her boyfriend, and making really gross threatening remarks about the possibility of her, an adult woman, having a sex life. When she asks for him in the lift it feels like the movie is saying ‘See, despite all that silly stuff she was pretending to be mad at him about earlier, she’s realised she *needs* him’. I don’t think he ever apologises for any of that shit!

This podcast has absolutely been a source of joy for me this year! Very much looking forward to the tipsy no notes episode. Happy holidays everyone! 🥳🎄☃️

hello, getting sincere and parasocial as a chanukah treat. wanted to say thank yall for making a smart and also hilarious podcast that has kept me a LOT of company over the years but Especially this year, due to circumstances of me being Alone a lot. thanks for keeping me company and making me feel less insane :)

it's true, i am in your walls

Time to start planning for the future: 2027 Under Siege (Die Hard on a boat); 2028 Under Siege 2 (Die Hard on a train); 2029 Speed (Die Hard on a bus); 2030 Speed 2 (Die Hard on a less interesting boat) and so on in that fashion.

YOU THERE BOY! WHAT DAY IS THIS? Why sir it is Die Hard-mas, or as it is known in Germany, "The Hard-mas."

FYI this is the first Die Hard movie to be rated PG-13, which was a big deal at the time. It's presumably why some of the violence is edited strangely, and it's 100% why he can't "say the line". Also put me in the "this is effectively the only Die Hard I've seen..." club b/c I saw it across a few lunch breaks working at the local cineplex.

Honestly Abi’s theory of Computers Are Gay because men want things that serve them they can bully is really really clear right now with the AI ‘boom’, where they are actively making chat bots and giving computers personalities (notice how many AI assistant voices are default women?) that they can bully into submission to provide them a service, and eliminating the need to Know How to do things. Good theory!

This was also the first Die Hard movie I had seen, though I have since seen the others.

i did for a second think the thumbnail was Mia Mulder

I've commented this before but the discussion about women you own vs women you kill reminded me of Face/Off and True Lies, both movies about how the federal government is only legitimate insofar as it protects the nuclear family. And I guess both of them are kind of heists if you squint and look at them sideways

Did ballerina oh that explains a lot

Heeyyy last voyage of the Demeter isn’t THAT bad

i was gonna comment on abi's use of "misandry" and then i remembered nitpicking a drunk person i don't know's word choice is a dick move lol happy holidays, to four more transgender years of kjb 🍸

What's that line from Apocalypse Now: "We train young men to drop fire on people, but their commanders won't allow them to write 'fuck' on their airplanes because it's obscene"

This was the first and only Die Hard movie I've ever watched

It's over Monsieur Parkour, I have the high ground. -John McClain George W. Bush's Kronstein Rossette raises a lot of questions about who did 9/11. I also feel good about Kill James Bond in 2026. Looking forward to it.

Are your followers not allowed to vote for a film for your new-years episode this year?

Going to make this the first Die Hard movie I've ever watched, tonight

So this was also the first Die Hard film I saw, and I watched it multiple times before seeing the others. I'm not sure what I need you to do with this information.

Remember in the first film when Gruber compared McClain to John Wayne or Rambo and he said that he actually prefers Roy Rodgers? The writers of this film didn't.

.... Why did I think the daughter was played by Lindsay Lohan?

a hacking mini season would ruuuuuuule you should totally do hackers (1995) it has transfem matthew lillard

I watched this movie two weeks ago. I can only say that it is the most ideology ass movie i have ever seen.

Nova; i am pretty sure it‘s an f22. F35 wasn‘t out in 07. So combat record is loss to Bruce, popped 1 balloon.

Did Gerry Anderson’s early ‘70s spy series “The Protectors” ever pass through Cardiff? Robert Vaughan might have got closer than you think.

I don't know if this is true but I heard somewhere that the labelled block of C4 trope might have come from Stargate SG1. Apparently someone asked in a script meeting "how does the audience know it's C4?" So they put a big label saying "C4 explosive" on the outside. Searching around the internet to try to see what the real stuff looks like without getting on any more watchlists, it seems like it is labelled but not in as screen readable a way.

Please keep going

Why does the thumbnail look like Cloud Strife?

C4 in that rig like a random out of bounds tomato in a Source Engine game, don't know who put it there or why, but you try and remove it? Whole system falls apart!