How to Make Friends (the Easy Way)

I was at the library and picked up a book by Prince Charles, Harmony. The first part of the fly-leaf states, "For the last thirty years, The Prince of Wales has been known around the world as one of the vocal and forceful advocates of the environment." The fly-leaf goes on to discuss how Prince Charles has a plan to restore balance and bring us all back into harmony with the earth.

I burst out laughing.

Now, I have nothing against Prince Charles. In fact, between him and Princess Diana, I've always found him slightly less annoying (yes, I know she is dead, and yes, I'm sorry she is) although Alex Jennings' portrayal of him in The Queen is almost too spot-on.

I laughed because, like Princess Diana, Prince Charles has discovered that the easiest way to instantly win unqualified/uncritical support is to pick a cause that people will not or cannot debate. There's probably a logical fallacy in here somewhere, the opposite of the ad hominem attack, something like, "The virtue of the cause automatically lends virtue to the individual even if the individual is a self-interested basket-case."

I personally think Princess Diana, with far less left-brained consideration than Prince Charles, did precisely this when she was alive. I've always found Fergie as Avon/Weight Watchers spokesperson less off-putting than Diana's use of the spotlight to satisfy her deep and incessant need for approval and love (at least, Charles ultimately only needed Camilla; Diana needed the whole world). 

You might say, and I won't argue (much) that, hey, at least she was doing something. But that something  put her beyond reproach when, really, she behaved pretty badly on multiple occasions. And as far as I know, Christopher Hitchens is one of the few journalists who ever dared to criticize Princess Diana.

Prince Charles is now demonstrating that he learned Diana's lessons very, very, very well: Become the kind of environmentalist who wants to save the earth from untold threats--ergo, gain prestige and an automatic exception from in-depth criticism.

Of course, Al Gore learned it first.

I Am a Dean Hargrove Junkie

Dean Hargrove is the producer of some of TV's classic mystery shows: Columbo, Diagnosis Murder, Father Dowling Mysteries, Matlock, Jake and the Fatman.

Of these shows, I haven't seen Matlock or Father Dowling Mysteries.

I have seen all the Columbo and Diagnosis Murder episodes available on DVD. I also recently began watching Jake and the Fatman, and I am hooked! (The latter show is surprisingly modern in feel; it uses music and camera shots in a style I usually associate with 90's rather than 80's shows.)

I really can't get enough of this stuff. For one thing, I love the "cozy" murder mystery. Mafia and conspiracy plots bore me senseless. But give me jealous spouses, relations killing for inheritance, victims taking out blackmailers, and I'm as happy as a clam in black with a little gavel.

And I prefer the Hargrove approach. Hargrove often worked with Levinson and Link who, with Fischer, produced Murder, She Wrote. I enjoy Murder, She Wrote, but it is rather random; Mrs. Fletcher goes here and there, talking to these people, those people, some other people. It's hard to know where all the questioning is heading.

Hargrove's shows are far tighter. They often (but not always) begin by showing you the actual murder/murderer. The surprise or mystery is what mistake the murderer made that will help the good guys  capture the bad guys.

Even when the episodes don't begin with the actual murder, the investigation process moves along at a good clip with rising and falling action. Dr. Sloan investigates a set number of suspects; J.L. maps out a specific road map for investigation. Every "act" leads somewhere.

Like in Murder, She Wrote, there's a little too much reliance on verbal slip-ups, but Hargrove's writers will throw in fun forensics and unexpected link-ups just to keep things interesting. (My favorite is when Columbo catches a bad guy because Columbo's fingerprints, not the bad guy's, are on a piece of evidence. In general, Columbo concentrates on the time-line/process of the murder while Diagnosis Murder focuses on motive. In comparison, Murder, She Wrote focuses on the unexpected identity of the murderer.)

Like Murder, She Wrote, Hargrove's shows rely tremendously on the character of the investigators/stars.

You have to like Dick Van Dyke (which I do), Joe Penny and William Conrad (which I do; they remind me of Nero Wolfe and Archie Goodwin), Andy Griffith (who I don't really care about), Tom Bosley (who is just cute), and Peter Falk (who I adore). This investment in the main star is less necessary with Law & Order and CSI. I don't watch any classic Law & Order after Season 4 since I bemoan the loss of Moriarty so much. But Law & Order and CSI aren't QUITE as reliant on a single star. The stories themselves will keep people watching. There's an entire system to take over if the investigators are out of commission.

Hargrove's shows, on the other hand, emphasize the character and role of the private detective. Like with Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Peter Wimsey, and Tey's Alan Grant, if you don't want to spend company with Hargrove's detectives, well . . . that's a lot of television you might as well not watch.

Me? I wish the studios would hurry up and release more Hargrove mysteries onto DVD!

Die Hard Goes Matrix-y

After multiple recommendations, I finally saw Live Free or Die Hard.

In comparison to Die Hard with a Vengeance and Die Hard, I still consider the original to be the best.

However, Live Free or Die Hard has some things going for it.

First, what it doesn't have going for it--

The premise is unbelievably dumb. At one point, Matt says, "It took five days for FEMA to get water to the super-dome!" Yeah, and in the meantime, the rest of the country was working just fine.

However, cataclysmic overload IS the fantasy of action movies--as Matt points out regarding the "fire sale." In my review of Die Hard, I comment that "we get to see the trashing of a building and city block! We don't want the bank robbers to succeed, but we get to see them (temporarily) succeed when the bank vault opens (accompanied by great music)."

This is really what end-of-the-world stuff is all about: giving the little anarchist in all of us (some) free reign.

In reality, even Rome took a long time to fall. (And don't tell me computers would speed it up; as Joe points out, modern companies--including the government--still don't use computers as efficiently as they could. Upload all the nation's finances to one place?! Oh, please.)

Allowing (and dismissing) the premise, the movie is far more tightly constructed than Die Hard with a Vengeance. Good action movies should have simple needs--in this case, get Matt to a place where he can figure out what the bad guys are up to computer-wise.

And Justin Long as Matt is far, far, far less annoying than as the Mac guy (and a surprisingly good actor--who knew!). He and Bruce Willis have great comedic timing, and the underlying theme (what does it take to be a hero?) is nicely paid off in several scenes.

I especially like that McClane is back to being just this ordinary cop who got pulled into an extraordinary situation--all he did was go pick up this hacker!

This concept of McClane is straight out of the first movie; more than Vengeance, Live Free or Die Hard captures the original motifs without simply recasting them.

For example, Timothy Olyphant plays the debonair bad guy. Though not as great as Rickman, he is far more tolerable than Jeremy Irons--and far more interesting to look at--partly because his motivations are well-established and also because he is a coward, unwilling to face McClane until he (falsely) believes McClane is toast. This makes his behavior towards McClane completely comprehensible throughout the entire movie.

Finally, the ultimate Die Hard theme--an analog guy in a digital world--is excellently paid off. (If one ignores all the people made out of rubber--I never thought human beings could bounce so well!)

John McClane proves why he, more than Stallone or Ford or Eastwood or even Schwarzenegger, is the origin of all the "Bournes," savvy action heroes of the modern age. McClane is the hero that can bridge the generation gap.

For example, the writers do a great job showing that despite the difference in age and perspective, Matt and McClane have a similar libertarian view of the world. And of bad guys. McClane is downright proud when Matt snows the On-Star lady into starting the car, and he is more than a little amused by Matt's "spamming" the bad hacker.

So . . . McClane *might* let Matt date his daughter (BTW, I love how totally like her dad, Lucy is.)

Which isn't to say that Matt doesn't have his own take on the world. One of my favorite exchanges is this one:

Matt Farrell: I'm not a doctor but-but you look like you're hurt.
John McClane: Sexy, right?
Matt Farrell: Um, no.

Analog meets digital. They both think the other is kind of odd--but mostly, they get along.

McClane will always be classic.

The "Endurance Plot"

This post originally started out as commentary on Friends. However, it has morphed into a critique of a certain type of literary plot.

As part of our sitcom list, Mike and I reviewed Friends. As a result of reviewing Friends, I ordered and watched several seasons.

Here's what I learned.

Friends is extremely well-written, not just per episode but per season. The writers pace the big events extremely well; they aren't as crowded or as spread out as I had remembered.

And I never realized how long the duck and the chick were Joey and Chandler's pets!

I also learned that if you watch Friends too much, your brain cells will die.

You could say, "Well, that's true of all sitcoms," but I beg to differ. I have seen Frasier all the way through at least twice, and I've never felt like too-many-episodes=death-of-the-brain.

The writing (in terms of jokes/lines) is equally good on both shows; the difference in brain cell killage, I believe, lies in an underlying fundamental difference: Friends is a show about people who endure. Frasier is a show about people who create their own destinies.

In Friends, everything that happens, happens TO the characters, even when they are the cause of those things. Ross's divorces are things that happen to him. Rachel having a baby is something that happens to her. Rachel and Ross getting married in Las Vegas is something that happens to them. It isn't so much that they are victims; rather, they are constantly at the mercy of LIFE.

Now, this isn't exactly a false truth. Things do happen to us that we simply have to handle. Despite Ayn Rand's remarkably silly assertion in Anthem, we do not single-handedly recreate our own societies on a day-to-day basis. We are communal animals and part of being a communal animal is enduring. Say I get into a car accident--I fill out the paperwork, get a new car with another loan, and keep working, etc. I don't go live in a tree somewhere.

But this "endurance plot" is the only truth Friends knows.

In Frasier, Niles leaves his wife (of two days) to be with Daphne. By any moral standard, this is a really rotten thing to do. But it never bothers me the same way Ross and Rachel bother me because Niles is fully aware of what he is doing. He makes the decision and bears the consequences. There is never any suggestion that this is something that just happened to him, oops, guess he has to live through it.

Frasier is filled with people who may not make the decisions I would make but who are MAKING decisions that result in them creating certain types of lives for themselves.

Friends is about people who never really seem to get this.

And lately, it seems like this "endurance plot" has become rather ubiquitous. Without naming certain popular teenage series . . . it seems like the heroes and heroines are all reactive. Things happen to them, and they bear up. They bear up well . . . magnificently . . . endearingly.

But nobody actually gets on with things. As has been said, "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."

Or, as Eugene said once, "When the going gets tough, the tough leave." The Puritans got tired of being martyrs and sailed to America where they suffered but also where they built an entirely unique existence/culture/future.

"Endurance plots," on the other hand, only allow for one outcome: staying put and suffering. The Puritans remain in Europe; the Americans never get to the moon ("Oh, the Russians are beating us into space! I guess we should gnash our teeth and feel bad about it. Errrrrrr."); Monet et al. give up fighting the establishment and nobody hears of Impressionism. And maybe these specific outcomes wouldn't bother you, but they sure would make history kind of dull.

However, my main problem with "endurance plots" is not historical. I don't think they (or Friends) are indicative of the downfall of civilization or whatever. (In fact, if I were pushed, I would state that Friends is the type of show that keeps civilization trundling along--so many cultural norms are reinforced by the show, it isn't exactly a status quo breaker. Note: I'm not a big fan of status quo breakers).

My complaint is more aesthetic than philosophical.

To illustrate:

I like romances and mysteries because the tough do something, even if that something is to physically/metaphorically walk away from the problem. One fundamental rule of romances is that the heroine must change; internally, she (and sometimes the hero) undergoes a transformation. She doesn't change civilization as we know it, but she learns and grows within her own framework.

One fundamental rule of mysteries is that between the beginning and the end, the murderer must be identified (by the characters) and removed from society (absent a deus ex machina, also by the characters).

These are not HUGE, AWESOME changes; they are minor, personal, local. But they matter at the minor, personal, and local level. And I care about these changes because characters I care about make them happen.

But lately, there's been an awful lot of heroes and heroines I really couldn't care less about. I mean, so they've endured all kinds of horrible stuff . . . so, um, yay? Snooze. Okay, give me a romance or a mystery.