Fringe

"We should do some new mystery series!"


That's how it all must have been started. Someone stepped up and said "Mystery is big! And science is, too! Let's mix it up and ... when we are already on that, I don't like these simple location descriptions shown at the side of the screen. We need to come up with something new for that!". "Fringe" was created. A mix of conspiracy, pharmaceutical companies, bio terrorism, mysterious phenomenons and of course the FBI and a lost love - what a series. In a negative way.

Agent Dunham (Anna Torv) creates a new team to solve strange happenings, getting herself a modern day Dr. Frankenstein and ... his son? ... and a few other FBI MDs and tries to find solutions for all the strange cases that come her way since her partner died in an other case where he had turned out to be the terrorist, not the victim.

Sounds illogical and messed up? Yes it is! And also it's very boring set up. The acting is some normal TV series thing and the only good thing is Peter Outerbridge in the first episode. I love Peter Outerbridge.

Oh and back to the location descriptions. Have you ever seen giant letters floating in the air in front of buildings showing you where you are? You will - in this series. When a line at the side of the screen isn't enough you gotta stretch the description to the whole scene and make it 3D. Very ... clever ... guys ...

Fringe - On TV since 2008

Blood Ties

Very short review

In the times of "Moonlight", "Twilight", "Buffy", "Charmed" and all the other nice, little vampires and other strange things series it is really hard to come up with something new. The makers of "Blood Ties" came up with something never seen before however. A vampire ... that helps a police officer ... hunting monsters! Wohooo. You heard that one already?

Okay, but back then you didn't imagine they could ever put a forty year old female police officer in it. And a romance!

Oh, you did? Yes, it's true, there are slight similarities with lots of other movies, b-movies and series but we can't just get enough of those modern, always good looking, never too evil helpful vampire guys, now can't we.

Blood ties - On TV since 2006 (the fun never stops)

Miller's Crossing

Plot is a big word, and is an art form by itself, and that is why so many writers handle it with extreme care, but rarely a plot has been as twisted and brilliant as in Miller's Crossing, the Coen Brothers homage to gangster movies, with a plot as twisted as they come, revisiting the whole Irish Italian rivality without falling in the clichés of the genre, while observing the rules of Noir.

Tom Reagan (Gabriel Byrne) is the adviser and trust man of Leo O'Bannon (Albert Finney) who is a big Irish crime boss in a prohibition era city, a throne soon to be threatned by Johnny Casper (Jon Polito) a quick tempered Italina gangster because of a gambling debt story involving Bernie Bernbaum (John Turturro) a double faced bookie, and the brother of Verna Bernbaum (Marcia Gay Harden) who is the love interest of Leo, and because of whome, a gang war starts in the city, despite Tom's strong advices against Leo's involvment in this story, which will end him to earn the animosity of his former friends, and to face the ruthless Eddie the Dane () Casper's executioner, and a natural born killer straight out of hell.

We are in the middle of a Dashiell Hammett novel's setting, the ultra corrupt town with rotten officials, Marcia Gay Harden as a weary femme fatale with really simple motives, John Toruturo as the meanest movie character you'll ever see, and Jon Polito, who gives a performance that makes you regret that he was not in The Godfather, and Frances McDormand and Steve Buscemi in short but memorable roles.

But the true force of the movie is Gabriel Byrne, who walks through this movie as a hat blowing breeze, he is not always at the right side of events and often ends up in trouble, but this is a tale of loyalty, and of the fragility of every system based on loyalty, and how a simple event can be the direct cause of a war.

This movie is on a lots of best lists and favourite lists, but is not much celebrated, so it's a time for everybody to unbury this treasure, with a plot as thick as a warm blanket and characters you will not forget soon, and of course, the whole gangster era nostalgia, in a time where criminal ethics belong only in the realm of the silver screen.

year of realease: 1991, origin: US

Collateral

Some movies belong to the night, they happen in the night, and they are just this enveloping darkness where a lot of things are possible, which are not possible otherwise, and "Collateral" is an extreme example in that sense because it happens during one night in January 2004.

Max (Jamie Fox) is a middle age humble cab driver in Los Angeles, he is a regular guy, with hopes and dreams, which will probably never happen, one day he picks a client, a beautiful district attorney (Jada Pinkett) and gets along well with her, not knowing that this cab ride will change his life.

Somehow he crosses paths with a ruthless killer Vincent (Tom Cruise) who is in town for some "cleaning jobs" and who convinces him to be his driver, of course a lot happens, because max has to deal with his fears, his lack of initiative, his obsessive mother, and of course learns a lot in the contact of somebody as Vincent, who is as methodical as a killing machine, all that happening in the awesomely filmed LA night.

First of all, let me say this, I'm a big fan of Micheal Mann and i don't hide it, this man made "Heat" another big LA film, and if you can have Al Pacino and Robert DeNiro on screen, then you are our hero, and I admire his pioneering work in the use of big digital cameras, which
yield magnificent results especially during night scenes, and this movie is a night movie by excellence, and it's a movie so faithful to that esoteric spirit of Midnight to 3AM

Tom Cruise, as much as you can blame him for carrying his big sientologist smile on screens for two decades, is as brilliant as he was in "Magnolia", his interpretation and his physical changes are impressive, he is exactly the night fox of this movie, agile, predator, and efficient, as you would expect them, and within the tiny space in the cab, a really psychological duel faces him to Max, duel of motives, duel of Live in the moment versus carefully planned, and you see Max
toughening during the movie to the point he impresses even himself.

All the classical themes of the night are present too, the loneliness, the Jazz, the nightclubs,the silcnce, the meditation, and whatever the curtains of night fall one, and the movie ends in a way mirroring it's beginning, the terrible oneliness of a town of fifty millions people with all that abundance in everything, except maybe human warmth.

As far as I am concerned this movie is part of an LA trilogy, started with Heat, and i hope that Micheal Mann will close it with a worthy third episode, because some movies are characters, and because catching the spirit of a city is as difficult as describing an intense multilevel feeling, but this is a movie that has a finger on the pulse of what is probably the most fascinating city in pop culture, and that's why it would be almost a sin to miss it.

Released: 2004, Origin: US