A Farewell To Fringe

A Show That Brought New Meaning To The Term "Cool"

Written by Matt Giles
Edited by Erin Accomando

Last night, after five seasons and one hundred episodes, Fringe said goodbye forever. This was one of those shows that gained a cult following over the years, to the point that when it was in danger of being cancelled, the fans were able to keep it on the air. It was also - regardless of whether or not you're a science fiction nerd - one of the most unique shows to ever air on television.

For the uninitiated, Fringe was about an F.B.I. Agent named Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv) who is selected by her superior, Phillip Broyles (Lance Reddick), to be part of the Fringe Division at the F.B.I. Olivia recruits Walter Bishop (John Noble, who is absolutely brilliant), a scientist responsible for many experiments which have lead to the so called "Fringe Events", the result of which led to his incarceration in a mental institution. Lastly, Walter's son, Peter (Joshua Jackson, bringing more to the character with each season), is brought in to "translate" his father's often gibberish-like musings.

It started off slow - the first season being heavily overseen by its creators, J.J. Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci - and, as a result, was a mixed bag of goodies that first year. Abrams had stated that he wanted to have a less serialized show on the air (referring to Alias and Lost), which would usually mean that there would be a handful of mythology episodes with the rest being standalone, mystery-of-the-week type episodes. Not so. Instead, (according to Abrams) there would be plot points in every episode that propelled the overall story for those who were watching every week. For those that weren't, the episodes could be viewed as their own self-contained story. In other words, Fringe began as something of a hybrid, if we're using the typical model most shows follow.

Starting with season two, however, Fringe became something more. Abrams helped map the season out, but the showrunning duties fell to Jeff Pinkner and J.H. Wyman. (Pinkner had been selected as showrunner during season one and he later promoted Wyman to co-run the show with him). From this point on, the stories - from the cases the Fringe team would investigate to the character and season arcs - became unbelievably inventive. The groundwork had been laid toward the end of season one for certain storylines that became part of the show's charm, not the least of which was the relationship between Walter and Peter.

Noble and Jackson became the perfect dynamic-duo, if you will, their characters not having anything in common at first and evolving into depending on one another. Walter, a flawed father in many ways during Peter's childhood, tries to make amends with his past. Peter, reluctant to even talk to Walter in those early episodes, comes to respect, admire and yes, love, his father. In an odd way these two become a metaphor for the show itself: learn to accept the unknown rather than reject or be afraid of it.

In addition, Olivia herself was something of a unique heroine on television. She was never exploited for her beauty, never relied on men to save her, and also never portrayed as a tomboy, a trap many shows with female leads tend to fall into. She simply was Olivia Dunham: the agent who saved the world time and time again with her Fringe-like abilities. It's not too often that writers can get a female lead so right - shows like Alias and Chuck, for example, had strong female leads but each week managed to find ways to put them in revealing clothing of some kind - and praise should be given to Pinkner, Wyman and rest of the writing staff of Fringe for creating, and maintaining, such a great character.

A show with this many plot-twists demands grounded characters like these to keep us engaged. That was never more evident than in this final season, which jumped ahead twenty years to a time when the Observers - the bald-headed, fedora-wearing, albinos who could travel through time and space to "observe" major events in human history - had taken over and where our characters, frozen in amber for 21 years, had to find a way to stop them. This final year was very much a dystopian cautionary tale, by far the darkest year of the entire series. But I, like so many others, stayed with it because no matter how dark and tragic things got, Olivia, Peter, Walter and Astrid (Jasika Nicole, Walter's assistant) were there to anchor me in some degree of familiarity.

After everything these characters lost, particularly this season, the finale episode entitled "An Enemy of Fate" was moving, action-packed, rewarding and quite simply, perfect. This was a show that was in danger of being cancelled after season two and on. Each year Fringe took more risks, exploring alternate realities, reset timelines, shape-shifters, and future insurrections. Like Peter himself, the show (by conventional standards) should have never existed, but it did, and it fought back from the brink of death each season. It was wacky, it was dark, it was funny and at times devastatingly sad.

The best way to describe the tone of this beloved show of mine can be found in a line from last night's finale, in which Peter and Walter are arming themselves to fight the Observers. Walter instructs Peter to hold on to bullets which, when they hit an Observer, will cause them to "float away like balloons". Peter asks, "If we shoot them, they're dead. Why would we want them to float away?" Walter replies (with perfect delivery by Noble), "Because it's cool."

From now on, when I'm asked why I have such affection for Fringe, that perfect line will be my response.

Zero Dark Thirty ★★★★

A Decade-Long Hunt For Justice

Written by Matt Giles
Edited by Erin Accomando

Opening with haunting audio of victims trapped in the World Trade Center on September 11th, 2001, Zero Dark Thirty chronicles the ten-year hunt for Osama bin Laden and offers a chilling portrayal of the cost at which this pursuit was achieved.

Jessica Chastain plays a C.I.A. officer named Maya, a woman so determined to find bin Laden that all we come to know about her is her drive to find him. Whether or not Maya is based on a specific person, or several, remains to be seen, but Zero Dark Thirty itself should be remembered as perhaps the closest retelling of the last ten years that we will ever see.

There have, of course, been some controversies over the nature of torture depicted in the film, which unfortunately take away from Zero Dark Thirty's importance. There have not been any post-9/11 films that have so perfectly captured the tone of what America was feeling for so many years. There was anger, confusion, dread, frustration, sadness and above all, a need for answers. Whether or not America used torture to gain intelligence regarding bin Laden's location is not the point of Zero Dark Thirty; it's one aspect of the film that leaves opinion up to the viewer. This is a film about the pursuit of justice and the sacrifices people like Maya and other characters made in order to get it.

The director, Kathryn Bigelow, and writer, Mark Boal, whose previous collaboration The Hurt Locker won best picture in 2009, know how to tell stories about terrorism and the realities of living in the current political climate that we do. When retelling a story, there are always liberties one takes, especially in film, which seems lost on those who criticize Zero Dark Thirty as 'un-American'. Think of this film less as strictly fact (though, there are many facts that are accurate) and more as a commentary about American attitudes.

Maya is the embodiment of those attitudes. She's meant to be the mirror with which we look at ourselves. We wanted answers; we wanted bin Laden. It's not spoiling anything to say that by the end of the movie, we get him, but what we're left with is not a dead body to gawk at, but instead an image of Maya wondering, "What now?" You're likely to feel the same way by the time the credits roll.

Zero Dark Thirty is currently in wide release.

I Am Not A Hipster ★★★★

Struggling To Find Meaning After The Death of His Mother

Written by Matt Giles

Edited by Erin Accomando

When we first meet Brook (Dominic Bogart), an indie-rock musician living in San Diego, we see many of the attributes of the modern day hipster: he rejects virtually anything that could be considered mainstream, rides a bicycle instead of driving a car, wears thick-rimmed glasses, and just does not seem to care about anything. The title of the film, of course, suggests that these traits are all part of a facade that Brook is putting out into the world. We come to learn that Brook, for the past year or so, is still devastated by the loss of his mother.

Throughout I Am Not A Hipster, we're given just enough detail about this woman (shown very briefly in flashback with no dialogue) to know that she meant the world to Brook and his three sisters. It informs everything that Brook does and says, making him both a fascinating character study and a guy a you would love to hit square in the face quite frankly. For most of the movie, the best parts of Brook are seen when he's with his sisters, who show up to spread their mother's ashes in the ocean. Of the three of them, Joy (Tammy Minoff) is the one who has the most screen time with him, rightfully so as Minoff beautifully balances understanding her brother while also giving him the wake-up call he needs. 

What I love about this movie, as well as the music throughout it, is the fact that it managed to use the medium of film to convey all the emotions I've ever felt listening to some of my favorite musicians. I tend to be on the fence with Radiohead depending on the album, but an example of what I'm talking about could be found in their song "Fake Plastic Trees". For me, it's a song that, regardless of the lyrics, is about loss and hope living in harmony. I can't quite describe everything I feel when I listen to something like that, but those same emotions bubbled to the surface while I was watching I Am Not A Hipster. 

My favorite scene in the movie is an example of these conflicting emotions when Brook, his sisters, and his estranged father finally go the beach to put their mother to rest. Carrying the urn out to sea, Brook drops it in the ocean when a wave hits him harder than expected. What follows is a conversation between father and son that is so perfect I was moved to tears. This is one of the few character study films (if such a sub-genre exists) that knocked me out by how terrific and understated it was.

I haven't seen many films that tackle the relationship between loss and creativity so well. I Am Not A Hipster should be considered a lesson to aspiring filmmakers. Anyone who has ever experienced a tragedy and created something - be it a song, a film, a novel or anything else - knows that the key is not to be consumed by grief, but instead to use it as your fuel. I won't discuss spoilers here, except to say that Brook is an example of that journey, a character worth your time in a film that is truly special. 

I Am Not A Hipster is currently available on demand. 

Django Unchained ★★½

Entertaining To A Point, But Not Tarantino's Finest Work

Written by Matt Giles
Edited by Erin Accomando

I think I'm in the minority when I say that Quentin Tarantino's latest film, Django Unchained, is just okay. This theory also applies to my feelings toward his previous film, Inglourious Basterds, which, despite mixed reviews, I thought was perfect.

The story in this film is about the title character, Django (Jamie Foxx), a slave who is freed by a German bounty hunter named Dr. King Shultz (a terrific Christoph Waltz) in order to help Shultz find the Brittle Brothers, whom Django once belonged to. The two become friends and after several successful bounty kills, Shultz agrees to help Django find and free his wife, Broomhilda (Kerry Washington). When they eventually locate her, they find out that she is owned by Calvin Candie (Leonardo DiCaprio, who does his best work in years), a ruthless slave owner in charge of a southern plantation named Candyland.

Of all the characters in the film, Shultz is the only one who tries to find peaceful ways of resolving problems. Yes, he kills people for money, and yes, he enjoys it, but he only kills people who draw on him first or those who are criminals wanted by the law. When Django wants to kill Candie and all of his men, Shultz persuades him to take action within the limits of the law. When Candie is tormenting one of his doomed slaves, Shultz tries to pay him for that slave's life. He's the glimmer of hope in an otherwise dark and bloody movie, the polar opposite of his character in Basterds.

Furthermore, Tarantino takes his time developing the relationship between Shultz and Django, so much so that DiCaprio doesn't even appear on screen until well into the film. The first hour or so involves Shultz helping Django master his shooting ability while the two men battle the cold of the winter and collect rewards for all of their kills. When Django kills his former owners, you know they're deserving of what happens in the same way that Hitler deserved his brutal death in Basterds. As with that film, Tarantino no longer seems interested in commenting on violence in cinema, rather, he relishes in it. It worked once, but perhaps seeing a similar revenge story again is what left me feeling underwhelmed.

While Tarantino's films all manage to concern revenge in some way, Django feels like it's nothing new, despite its attempts at being a western. Inglourious Basterds had an original feel to it: It was Tarantino's World War II, brutally rewriting history while giving us the same sharp dialogue and love of movies that we've come to expect in his work. Django Unchained feels like he's trying to cash in on that same magic, only this time it's applied to slavery.

It's definitely creating an emotional response from the audience, but not exactly ushering in an appreciation of how far we've come as a nation. He's giving us an excuse to enjoy the killing of so many people and wants us to share in the excitement of that. To do that in his last film, a departure in many ways from what he typically does, felt refreshing. Now, however, he seems to want to hit us over the head with this new found appreciation for glorified violence.

In many ways, each of Tarantino's movies are love letters to what has come before: his first few films were all homages to crime thrillers and gangster pictures from a bygone era; his Kill Bill series paid respect to his fascination of the Samurai film; Death Proof was obviously a Grindhouse appreciation; and Inglourious Basterds illustrated his love of making movies. We get none of that in this film.

It may seem as though I hated Django Unchained; I didn't. There is enough that I love about Tarantino in it to keep me mostly entertained. His next work will surely tell us if this is the direction he's headed with his films. If it is, I don't know if I'll ever be on board. You'd think by now he'd be ready to show us something completely unexpected. Apparently, he's not.