Wishing you some action on Valentine's Day

Relationship in a rut? There's nothing like Valentine's Day to rekindle romantic feelings — except maybe some shared high-stakes danger. Take a lesson from the following estranged spouses as our resident couples counselor plots out plans to rescue their endangered unions.

Twister

Stormy weather
Jo and Bill have been through a lot...of tornados. The storm-chasing scientists called their mariage quits, though, when Jo's twister obsession clashed with Bill's desire to settle down.

Doctor's Orders
Jo, stall on signing the divorce papers so that Bill and his new fiancée are forced to track you down in the field. When Bill arrives, tempt him to stay awhile by unveiling the tornado maping device he designed. Bill, lead the old rag-tag team on a few more tornado chases, and make sure you're there to talk Jo down from her freaked-out personal vendetta against the storm that killed her dad. (This might be a good time to hint that you still have feelings for her, too.) If the two of you can work together to sucessfully deploy the mapping device, you should have clear skies ahead. This will be tough on Bill's fiancée, but that relationship was only motivated by the need for technical exposition, so it probably wasn't meant to last anyway.

Independence Day

Feeling alien-ated
Connie is an ambitious political strategist. David is a quirky but brilliant underachiever. When offered the chance to work for the president, Connie chose career over marriage, leaving David feeling betrayed and bitter. Luckily, David didn't lose any of his genius in the separation, so when aliens invade Earth he still has enough wits to understand the situation better than any government official.

Doctor's Orders
David, what I'm going to ask you to do sounds impossible, but you're obviously the only guy who can pull it off. Using only your Apple laptop from 1996 and your knowledge of cable television, I want you you decipher the aliens' secret plans, write a virus that can shut down their computer network, co-pilot an alien spacecraft without any previous flight experience, dock with the alien mothership, and — truly putting the "universal" in USB — connect your Mac to the ship's network and implant the virus. If saving the world doesn't convince Connie to give you another chance, perhaps the hefty check from Steve Jobs will.

The Abyss

Underwater rift
Lindsey and Bud were the perfect deep-sea duo: she designed a revolutionary underwater oil rig, and he could run it like no one else. Nowadays Lindsey keeps to dry land while Bud wallows at the bottom of the sea. Recently the military comandeered their rig in order to retrieve a sunken nuclear submarine, so the estranged couple has been forced to reunite and assist in the operation.

Doctor's Orders
Lindsey, when things are worst and you and Bud are trapped in a broken mini-sub on the sea floor, suggest a horrific survival plan: drown yourself and let Bud use the scuba gear to swim you back to the underwater base. He'll have to bring you back from the dead once he gets there, but all the mouth-to-mouth, defibrillating, and pounding on your chest are sure to stir up old feelings of the heart — literally. Later, let Bud make an equally self-sacrificial gesture by diving to record depths to defuse a nuclear bomb. Only afterwards, when he has no apparent hope of returning, will he confess his true feelings for you. Sounds grim, to be sure, but with a little luck (and extraterrestrial intervention), I think you guys may be able to salvage the nukes — and your marriage.

True Lies

Truth and consequences
Harry has been keeping a secret from his wife, Helen, for seventeen years — a BIG secret: while Helen thinks her husband is a humdrum computer salesman, he is actually a government super-spy living a life of glamorous danger. Harry's secret job takes up much of his time and attention, and consequently a neglected Helen has started looking elsewhere for excitement. To Harry's surprise, Helen has begun flirting with a used car salesman who pretends he's a spy.

Doctor's Orders
Harry, you need to give Helen something to be interested in. First, round up some of your agent buddies and storm in on Helen and her phony spy while he's trying to put the moves on her in his trailer. Abduct the two, then interrogate Helen from behind a two-way mirror to confirm that she still loves you. If you don't feel you've already strained the ties of marital honesty too much, tell her she's free to go if she cooperates on a secret mission: make her pose as a high-priced prostitute and entertain you with a humiliating striptease while you remain concealed in darkness posing as an international bad guy. If, however, you and Helen should be abducted by terrorists (it's likely), you should probably come clean about what you've been up to all these years. Letting her in to your secret life will give you more "together time," provided she forgives you for the years of lying, the staged abduction, the forced striptease, and for allowing terrorists to kidnap your daughter. Something tells me she will.

Jurassic Park III

Living in the past
Paul and Amanda haven't gotten along well since their divorce. To make matters worse, their tewlve-year-old son Eric recently went missing on an off-limits Costa Rican island swarming with cloned dinosaurs. Tensions between the parents are at an all-time high.

Doctor's Orders
I recommend a tropical getaway. First, pretend to be wealthy adventurers (lots of couples find roleplaying theraputic) and use this front to convince dinosaur expert Alan Grant to accompany you on a tour of Jurassic Park, the abandoned island theme park where genetics corporation InGen created clone dinosaurs which ultimately escaped and either ate or scared away all humans. On this island inhabited by creatures from earth's past, you'll have plenty of time to ruminate on your own — when you're not running for your lives, that is. Remembering the good times may help you envision a happy future. (Though finding Amanda's dead boyfriend decaying in a tree couldn't hurt either.)

Die Hard

Long-distance runaround
John and Holly have been in a slump ever since Holly's job promoted her all the way to California. Macho John's not about to give up his job as a New York City cop, so now the two are barely keeping things together across the miles.

Doctor's Orders
Holly, reach out to John and invite him to L.A. to attend your office Christmas party. John, when international terrorists crash the festivities, make a narrow escape, then proceed to eliminate the criminals one by one. When their leader takes your wife as his personal hostage, do some last-minute rescuing and save Holly from being pulled to her death — and from her pesky notions of having a career! You'll give Holly a "second chance" and get to feel needed and in charge again, just like the manly man you want to be.

Yippee-kai-yay, Father Christmas!

John confesses his faults to Al

As I prepare for my annual Christmas Eve viewing of Die Hard, I present a few stray and overdue thoughts on this holiday favorite. Die Hard has been to me the prototypical "action movie." It may not have been the first, but it was the first one I noticed influencing others of its time. It established — or at least brought to my attention — some conventions that would follow elsewhere: a tricky "caper" plot that belies the simple expectations of big action, an estranged heterosexual couple that passes through the trauma of said plot to emerge reconciled at film's end, and an implicit homosexual relationship between the male leads through which all interpersonal relationship issues are resolved.

Holly's watch comes undone

Die Hard places blame for the couple's troubles on the woman and on her attempted independence. It is suggested that despite John's stubborn phallocentrism, it is Holly's decision to pursue her own career that has put the pair's marriage in jeopardy. Further, the west coast company that Holly works for is shown to be ethically dubious, in opposition to John's east coast job in law enforcement: drug use and sex in the workplace are shown during the office party, with the company boss seemingly laughing off what John sees as obvious transgressions. To save Holly, and therefore their marriage, John must defeat not only Hans Gruber, but Holly's career. He puts an end to both, literally to the former, symbolically to the latter, by undoing the clasp on Holly's watch, a gift given to her by the company for a job well done.

Reunited: John and Holly, Al and his gun

The reconciliation of John and Holly is remarkably one-sided, with John doing most of the talking. He does this talking not to Holly, however, but to Al. Talking to Al over police radio, John confesses his faults and his feelings for Holly in an emotional highpoint. Al confesses his own inadequacies, in his case a symbolic impotence resulting from his accidental shooting of a child, an incident that has left him unable to draw his gun since. When the hostage crisis is over and John and Al meet in person for the first time, they are given a much more emotional and romantic reunion than John and Holly. After their tearful embrace, Al is able to pull out his phallus — his gun — and empty it into the body of a leggy long-haired blond, the last bad guy. Both men are restored to full potency, and Holly is reclaimed by her husband and their marriage. Indeed, given the importance placed on the relationship between John and Al, Holly's role — or the role of any woman in this scenario — is strictly token.