Got a lovely e-mail from someone named Paul who enjoyed “Live Free or Die Hard,” as well as my review of it. He added this:

But I don’t know who all these people are who think the title is dumb — I think it kicks [butt]. I can just see the guys in Iraq painting that slogan on their tanks.

I thanked Paul for his kind words about my review, and said I guess the title seems dumb because … well, what does it MEAN? “Live Free or Die Hard.” Sure, it sounds cool, but what does it actually mean?

He responded:

I guess I took it as “Live Free or Die Hard (trying to be free).”

Or maybe “(Let us) Live Free (you terrorists, or you’re going to) Die Hard.”

Um…..yeah, I guess it’s dumb.

I applaud Paul’s efforts to try to make sense of the title.

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Some people take umbrage at the way critics write their reviews in such authoritative tones — and that umbrage is entirely misplaced.

I was reminded of this by a comment someone posted here recently:

The issue I have with MOST of the reviews is the same I have with nearly every review ever penned, stating ones opinion as fact, and that IS pompous.

It’s a familiar sentiment, echoed all over the Internet:

I never listen to critics or take them seriously. They like to pass their opinions as fact. Not everyone has the same taste/opinion, ergo their point sort of becomes moot. (Comment on a video-gaming site.)

(In other words, since many readers will have opinions different from the reviewer’s, the reviewer might as well not even bother writing his.)

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Portland is a great town for geeks. Several comic book writers, artists, and publishers make their homes here. You can’t swing a light saber in this town without hitting some skinny hipster with black nerdy-cool glasses and a vintage T-shirt, ready to talk about why the second half of season 13 of “The Simpsons” was better than the first half of season 9. And Portlanders love the work of Joss Whedon: “Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” “Firefly,” and the film “Serenity.”

My first up-front exposure to this devotion was Tuesday night, when I joined some friends at the McMenamins Mission Theater to watch the two-hour pilot episode of “Firefly.” Sponsored by KUFO and McMenamins, they’ll be screening two episodes every Tuesday night at the Mission until they’ve finished the series … which won’t take long, since it only lasted 15 episodes, counting the two-hour pilot as two.

I had seen the first six episodes that Fox aired back in 2002, but that did not include the pilot. Fox didn’t like the pilot, so they aired another episode as the premiere and didn’t show the actual pilot until the very end, when they had given up on the series and were just burning off episodes. And by then I wasn’t watching anymore.

Shame on me, because I’ll be doggoned if the pilot isn’t a fine piece of entertainment.

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