Cranky T-Rex's Blog

Let's face it, the only reason anyone has any interest in  Skyscraper is because it stars Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson.  Otherwise we'd all take one look at this Die Hard meets Towering Inferno homage and laugh it straight to "looking for something to fall asleep to on Netflix at 1 AM." But The Rock tends to make good, fun movies out of all kinds of stuff.  Hell he made a Jumanji sequel that was one of the most surprisingly enjoyable movies of last year.  Of course the last movie I saw him in was Rampage , and as I said in the review for that, he really let me down on that one. Since then I've also seen his version of Baywatch on TV and just...dear God why. So naturally my normal enthusiasm for a Rock action movie was blunted quite a bit going into Skyscraper .  My hope was that somehow he and his team would manage to do something fresh and original with this concept.  Alas, there was absolutely nothing fresh or original to be found h...

"What is the greatest Christmas movie of all time?"  Why Die Hard of course, followed closely by The Ref , and yet this year, for some inexplicable reason, it seems people have begun to question Die Hard 's status as a Christmas movie. I imagine this is just some attempt to troll people who don't think A Christmas Story or It's a Wonderful Life should be in the top spot, but it's been a while since I wrote a post and it's a good a reason as any.  The fact is Die Hard is unquestionably a Christmas movie. Critics of this classification boil their argument down to two points: 1. Die Hard  was not released around/marketed towards Christmas 2. Die Hard  is not about Christmas That first one seems reasonable enough, except for the fact that the release and marketing of a movie are not bound by what's in the movie or by the people who made the movie.  For example, Miracle on 34th Street ,  a film I doubt an...