Remembering Alan Rickman

Veteran actor Alan Rickman died today at the age of 69. Rickman is probably best known for having played Professor Snape in the Harry Potter movies since those were so successful, but he also will be remembered for playing villian Hans Gruber in the first of the Die Hard movies.

I have to admit to not having seen too much of Rickman's work. I've never had any desire to see any of the Harry Potter movies, and it's been ages since I saw Die Hard. I think it probably would have been sometime back when I was in college that I saw the movie, and that was over 20 years ago. It's probably a movie that I ought to revisit if it weren't for the fact that I've got 40-somethign movies sitting on my DVR that I haven't watched and a schedule that really cuts into my movie-watching time. That and it's something you can't watch on any of the regular channels if they ever decided to do a tribute to Rickman. Never mind all the commercial breaks, the movie is full enough of bad language that it would be edited to pieces: airheads and melon farmers and all that fun stuff.

Among Rickman's other credits, there's the Sheriff of Nottingham in Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, a movie I remember better for that awful Bryan Adams song, and future Irish President Eamon de Valera in Michael Collins about the Irish fight for independence of a century ago.