Jason then sparks a conversation about David Duchovny and lays down his review on RocknRolla and the Guy Ritchie character cannon. As Chuck preps to watch “Shoot ‘em up,” he feels compelled to justify his disdain for “Crank,” “Air Force One,” and “24.” Jason attempts to poke holes in Chuck’s 24 shark jump theory by playing the porn card. They then discuss the Tr2n trailer and how cool the original Tron was in its day.

The show wraps with the great slate of DVD’s coming out this month.

Associated Links

• The Davey Awards
• Deep Blue Sea
• Black Snake Moan
• Californication
• 24 “dammit” video
• Tron 2 Trailer

Bookmark and Share

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™

So last night was the premiere of Fox’s new JJ Abrams’-produced “Fringe”. I’ll start by saying that Fringe is like a cross between X-Files, Lost, and 24. Allow me to expand on that statement.

Fringe is like X-Files because of it’s basic premise. Crazy things are happening and it’s up to a wiley boy/girl team to get to the bottom of all the craziness. You have your stiff, enigmatic government suit who is in charge, some interesting side characters, but truly the focus here is on Anna Torv’s “Olivia Dunham” and Joshua Jackson’s “Peter Bishop.” Olivia is the FBI Agent who doesn’t believe but really does. Bishop is the skeptic scientist. Oh yeah, and the whole conspiracy theory stuff.

Fringe is not like X-Files because of it’s basic acceptance of these strange things. Where the X-Files showed you the baddies and crazy things, essentially Mulder was the only one that saw this stuff. Even when Scully was getting abducted, she still held fast to disbelief. This show goes for the gusty and puts it all out there – melting people? Check. Bad guy with a motive? Check. Interesting twist? Check. Continued intrigue? check. Everybody sees they crazy stuff? Check. The basic idea here is wrapped around science, no aliens here and I like that. I wouldn’t be surprised if Hanso makes an appearance.

Fringe is like LOST because of JJ Abram’s and his amazing storytelling sensibilities. Abrams certainly comes from the Joss Whedon school of tough female leads and I like that. All of his heroines are believable and multi-faceted (Kate and Sydney anyone?). Fringe shares a common soundtrack with LOST especially on the outros to a break. The crescendo of dissonance is a welcome reminder that this show is really not all in your face…you do need to look deeper (if you dare Muuuhhahawahawhhwhwhaaa).

Fringe is not like LOST because it wrapped up the first story in the Premiere! Seriously, a nice complete, contained story with a lead-in to a larger enjoyable story arc. Good thing too, because I think my brain only has room for one LOST right now, and I’m still recuperating from last season.

Fringe is like 24 because it’s heroine will do anything to save the people she loves. I mean…well you’ll see, if you didn’t catch the Premiere, Fox is airing an encore (check your local listings). Just like when Jack Bauer gets in all sorts of insane situations (torture, etc.) Olivia jumps into dangerous situations no questions asked (or very little for that matter) – It’s Bishop that is the voice of reason.

Fringe is not like 24 because right now it doesn’t suck. Ever since they killed off Dennis Haysbert’s Palmer, I was done.

In the end, I enjoyed Fringe, it provided a welcome escape from a stressful day and gave me enough thrills and homages to keep me entertained. A couple notable items:

1. The titles
   They are beautiful. Amazingly rendered and placed into the scene so as to become a character. I kept looking (upon location change) for how they where going to do them next. Excellent.
2. John Noble
   As the crazy Dr. Walter Bishop, he’s Dr. Emmet Brown, CSM, and Jeffrey Goines all rolled into one.

My only gripe with the Premiere is that by the end of it, the characters where a little too neat and wrapped up. I know they want to get the stories moving, but I would have liked to see a little more strife, it was a little bit predictable.

On a whole, I’m going to give the Premiere of Fringe a 7. I think it was a solid opener with some complicated plot points, but all-in-all, I think they pulled it off. I’ve set a season pass on TiVo and I will continue to watch.

Well, what do you think?

Bookmark and Share

More »

Powered by Bookmarkify™