Fringe (pilot episode)

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Created by J J Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci

Starring Anna Torv, Joshua Jackson, John Noble, Lance Reddick, Kirk Acevedo, Jasika Bicole, Blair Brown and Mark Valley

Pilot episode written by J J Abrams, Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci

Directed by Alex Graves



Olivia Dunham (Anna Torv), a Special Agent with the FBI, is called to Logan Airport in Boston, where a German passenger jet has landed on automatic pilot, seemingly with no one alive onboard. When the plane is boarded it is discovered that the crew and passengers have been killed by an airborne toxin that causes the flesh to rot and melt off the bones.

Dunham’s presence as part of the investigation team is not welcomed by Agent Broyles (Lance Reddick), a member of Homeland Security, who is put in charge of the case, and when her lover and fellow FBI agent, John Scott (Mark Valley), is exposed to the same toxins that killed the people on the plane she begins a lone race against time to find some way of saving him.

She discovers a link to a brilliant Harvard scientist, Dr Walter Bishop (John Noble), who was experimenting with “fringe” science in the 1970s. However, he is confined to a maximum-security psychiatric unit and the only way to obtain access to him is through his son, Peter (Joshua Jackson), a character with a colourful past who is presently involved in semi-illegal activities in Iraq.

Dunham flies out to Baghdad and blackmails Peter Bishop into returning to Boston with her. He signs the necessary papers to have his father released from the hospital and work begins in Dr Bishop’s old laboratory at Harvard to find an antidote to the contagion. In the meantime, Dunham suspects links to a huge multi-billion-dollar organisation called Massive Dynamic.

‘Fringe’ is the latest American television series created and produced by J J Abrams, whose other television shows include ‘Alias’ and the very successful ‘Lost’. He was also the director and writer of ‘Mission: Impossible III’, the producer of ‘Cloverfield’, and the director and producer of the forthcoming ‘Star Trek’ movie. That film was written by Alex Kurtzman and Roberto Orci, who are the co-creators of this new show.

The series has recently premiered on the FOX network in America, which has commissioned a full 22-episode season. The pilot, which reportedly cost more than $10 million to make, attracted a little over 9.1 million viewers. Given that ‘Lost’ premiered in 2004 to more than 18.6 million viewers and maintained an average of 16.1 million viewers across the whole of the first season, this does not seem to bode well. However, ‘Lost’ is broadcast on the much bigger ABC network, and FOX does not seem to be quite as trigger-happy these days as it once was.

The pilot episode takes us up to the point from which the rest of the show will jump off. Dunham is now working for Broyles, who heads up a semi-secret unit charged with investigating “the Pattern”, a worldwide conspiracy of quasi-supernatural human experimentation. Peter Bishop becomes her partner, with his father acting as the scientific brains. Basically, it is ‘The X Files’ for the Noughties.

A show like this one does require a suspension of our disbelief. However, the pilot episode was absolute twaddle from start to finish. There has to be something believable to hang onto, some threads that hold the story down in the real world. One of the reasons why ‘The X Files’ worked so brilliantly was because it made us want to believe (pun intended). This opening episode of ‘Fringe’ was just rubbish, quite frankly.

I presume we are meant to conclude that Broyles is testing Dunham as a possible new recruit for his unit, which is why he is so aggressively antagonistic towards her and dismisses out of hand the numerous leads she uncovers. There is some rubbish spouted about her past in the military as a reason for the antipathy displayed towards her, but this is never explained in a convincing way. Dunham uncovers clues and links without any effort whatsoever, making us wonder what exactly the senior investigating team think they are up to. She seems to travel to Baghdad and back in a matter of a couple of hours – in a private executive jet. She is able to engineer the release of Dr Bishop, who is diagnosed as a dangerous psychotic who is not permitted any visitors except for immediate family, with no trouble whatsoever. Harvard has maintained his huge basement laboratory in mothballs for the whole of the 17 years of his incarceration – for no obvious reason. This is just the tip of the iceberg of the ridiculous improbabilities that allows the story to lurch from one scene to the next.

Torv, an Australian actress working in Hollywood for the first time, seems perfectly capable of filling the lead role. The decision to have her stripped down to her underwear as quickly as possible was disappointing and yet so tiresomely predictable. Joshua Jackson plays a typically smug Joshua Jackson character. At one point, Dunham expresses her irritation that Bishop insists on condescendingly calling her “sweetheart”, but her irritation was nothing compared to this viewer. I wanted to punch him. Jasika Nicole (playing Dunham’s “assistant”, Astrid Farnsworth) has a non-role in the pilot. Kirk Acevedo, who plays another FBI agent, and Dunham’s friend on the inside, reminded me of Nicholas Cage so much that nothing else got through.

The pilot is all gloss and no substance, with the use of a lot of pointless images that, at this stage, at least, serve no purpose other than to introduce quasi-meaning where there is none and no need of any. For me, the empty glossiness is a bad thing, but this is the “CSI” television age and so, perhaps, it will benefit the show as far as establishing an audience is concerned, although I cannot see it attracting a bigger audience than, say, ‘Bones’, which averages around 9 million viewers per episode. The fact that it has been renounced by the constantly ludicrous Parents Television Council will possibly work in its favour.

Having been very critical of the pilot episode, I will say that it took a turn for the better in the final 20 minutes or so. Enough to make me decide to at least watch the next episode to see if things improve as the show settles down. In theory, it is a show that I might enjoy.

Zack Whedon, the brother of Joss Whedon, wrote a comic book to go along with the series, published by WildStorm.



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Cursed

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Rating 2


Directed by Wes Craven

Written by Kevin Williamson

Starring Christina Ricci, Jesse Eisenberg, Joshua Jackson, Judy Greer, Michael Rosenbaum and Portia de Rossi


Director Wes Craven and screenwriter Kevin Williamson got back together six years after their collaboration on the first two ‘Scream’ films to make this werewolf horror. There were numerous delays because of problems with the script and production and several actors left the project along the way – including Skeet Ulrich, Mandy Moore, Robert Forster and Corey Feldman. Numerous cuts were made to the final film to ensure a PG13 rating and it was eventually released into American cinemas in March 2005 to generally poor reviews.

Christina Ricci plays Ellie, an assistant on the Craig Kilborn late-night chat show. She also looks after her teenage brother Jimmy (Jesse Eisenberg), both parents having died in an accident. Jimmy is routinely bullied at school. One night they are involved in an automobile accident on a lonely stretch of Mulholland Drive and while trying to help the driver of the other car they witness her being dragged off into the woods and ripped to pieces by a huge wolf-like creature. Both Ellie and Jimmy are injured in the attack and afterwards they begin to exhibit changes. Jimmy is convinced they are the victims of a werewolf attack and are now themselves turning into werewolves.

Strange killings begin to occur as Ellie and Jimmy search for answers. Suspects include Jake (Joshua Jackson), Ellie’s commitment-phobic, womanising boyfriend; Kyle (Michael Rosenbaum), Ellie’s friend and co-worker; and Joanie (Judy Greer), a bitchy publicist. Meanwhile, Jimmy’s sudden heightened senses and increase in physical strength allows him to defeat three bullies in a wrestling contest at school and out his main nemesis as gay.

The film never seems to decide if it wants to be a straightforward werewolf story or a parody/homage in the style of ‘Scream’ and largely fails on both counts. The story seems to be a metaphor for Aids, not that it ever manages to make its point with any great precision. There are some nice touches, but these are somewhat few and far between.

The werewolf genre is a rather tired beast these days and the shadow of the 1981 John Landis classic ‘An American Werewolf in London’ hangs heavy over it. ‘Cursed’ pales into insignificance by comparison. It is, in fact, no match for the wonderful Canadian werewolf horror ‘Ginger Snaps’ or even the hugely enjoyable and inventive Doctor Who episode ‘Tooth and Claw’, which sees Queen Victoria do battle with an intergalactic werewolf!

The acting is by and large no more than adequate. Joshua Jackson is certainly not at his best here and Christina Ricci gives every impression she is just going through the motions. Wes Craven and Kevin Williamson are capable of much better than this and it would appear the many production problems they suffered along the way got the better of them in the end.

A disappointment.

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Cruel Intentions

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Rating 3


Directed by Roger Kumble

Written by Roger Kumble from the book Les Liaisons dangereuses by Pierre Choderlos de Laclos

Starring Ryan Phillippe, Sarah Michelle Gellar, Reese Witherspoon, Selma Blair, Joshua Jackson, Eric Mabius and Tara Reid


This is the film that good proportion of Sarah Michelle Gellar’s hardcore fanbase loves and the comparatively low box office gross can perhaps be explained in part by the fact that it was given an ‘R’ rating in America, making it largely inaccessible to a sizeable number of her fanbase at the time. Having said that, Gellar does have an erratic box office history, being best known for her lead role in the cult television series ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’, and the substantial success of the 2005 film ‘The Grudge’ was probably largely down to a fluke of timing.

‘Cruel Intentions’ is probably best known for the so-called lesbian kiss. I have always assumed this scene is included in the film primarily as a means to generate publicity and provide a bit of titillation. It was a very clever piece of tacky manipulation and it worked.

What do I think of the film? To be honest, I can never fully make my mind up about it. It’s a clever take on ‘Dangerous Liaisons’, although I’ve always found the final scene rather shockingly over-cooked. It’s perhaps a little bit too flashy and superficial for my liking, although I hardly fall within the demographic of its key target audience.

Gellar would subsequently be criticised by her detractors for her next project, ‘Harvard Man’, but ‘Cruel Intentions’ is undoubtedly a more ethically debatable film and I think the character she plays here is far more sexually provocative. Gellar’s performance certainly taps into her character’s loneliness and emptiness. There is a real sense that Kathryn feels she has been abandoned and is inwardly crying out for someone to genuinely love her. Although she is a dangerously manipulative sexual predator, she is also strangely childlike. Whether or not this is something that successfully comes across to many fans of the film is a moot point. Are they interested in Kathryn’s motivations for her actions or do they just enjoy watching her at her most maliciously scheming, something the film undoubtedly encourages?

It has, in the past, been noted that she is playing against type in ‘Cruel Intentions’, meaning that she is playing a character quite unlike Buffy. And yet there were tribulations to secure the ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’ role. The producers, so it has been said, had some qualms about Joss Whedon’s plans to hire her, arguing, amongst other things, that he would be casting her ‘against type’ because of her three-year role in the daytime soap opera ‘All My Children’; the scheming and malicious Kendall Hart.

‘Cruel Intentions’ received very disparate reviews. Some critics thought it utterly reprehensible and calculatingly tacky. Terry Lawson, writing in the Detroit Free Press, described it as “vile and vacuous.” John R McEwen of The Republican makes clear that his intense dislike of Gellar in ‘Simply Irresistible’ was no one-off (and maybe suggests that his antipathy has deeper roots than a simple criticism of her acting skills).

“I thought Gellar was bad in Simply Irresistible, but watching her make pastries is infinitely more enjoyable than squirming through her attempt at evil refinement. Apart from spreading her legs and opening her blouse, her portrayal of Kathryn contains nothing that is remotely impressive… The performances by Witherspoon and Blair are not terrible, but they can’t save the film from Gellar.”

Once again, though, the respected veteran film critic Roger Ebert was much more amenable to both the film and Gellar’s performance.

“The movie is at its best in the scenes between Gellar and Phillippe, who develop a convincing emotional charge, and whose wickedness seems to work as a sexual stimulant. There’s one scene where she persuades him, emotionally and physically, to do what she wants, and we are reminded that slow, subtle eroticism is after all possible in the movies - even though recently it has been replaced by callisthenics. Gellar is effective as a bright girl who knows exactly how to use her act as a tramp, and Phillippe seems cold and detached enough to make it interesting when he finally gets skewered by the arrow of true love. The best parts of the movie allow us to see how good it might all have been with a little more care...”
Roger Ebert: Chicago Sun Times



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Urban Legend

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Rating 3


Directed by Jamie Blanks

Written by Silvio Horta

Starring Alicia Witt, Rebecca Gayheart, Jared Leto, Tara Reid, Joshua Jackson, Natasha Gregson Wagner and Loretta Devine


Horror films, certainly those being made by the mainstream Hollywood studios now for a largely teenage audience, are frequently approached with hostile distain by mainstream critics. The hardcore horror film fanbase can often be even more hostile, but for them instead of simply being suspicious of all horror films it becomes increasingly about personalities and sub-genres. For example, the emergence of “torture-porn” was partly a reaction to the glut of Hollywood remakes of “J-Horror” films, which were dismissed (offensively, I think) as, “Horror films for teenage girls that don’t like horror films.”

‘Urban Legend’ is the product of a studio looking to cash in on the success of ‘Scream’ and its immediate successors, ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ and ‘Scream 2’, three films that grossed more than $471 million between them at the box office. It could be argued that because ‘Scream’ already existed (and, indeed, John Carpenter’s timeless 1978 masterpiece ‘Halloween’, surely the most influential horror film of the last 30 years) there was no need to make a film like ‘Urban Legend’, except as a purely cynical moneymaking exercise.

Whatever the reasons behind the making of this film, it is one of my favourite horror films. Based on the number of times I must have watched it now, I could probably put it into my top five. Set in an isolated university, a group of friends are menaced by a series of sinister and suspicious deaths, each one appearing to match an urban legend.

The film was written by Silvio Horta, who is now the executive producer of ‘Ugly Betty’. It was directed by Jamie Blanks, who doesn’t seem to have done anything else of much note, except the rather horrible David Boreanaz and Denise Richards horror flick ‘Valentine’, although it was he who originally pitched the idea for ‘I Know What You Did Last Summer’ and filmed a promotional demo trailer prior to the directing duties being passed to Jim Gillespie.

It has a cast of young actors who were starting to make waves, mainly on television, many of them popular teen pin-ups at the time:

Alicia Witt had just spent three seasons and 87 episodes in the sit-com ‘Cybill’.

Jared Leto came from the short-lived but highly praised ‘My So-Called Life’.

Rebecca Gayheart had featured in eight episodes of the sixth season of ‘Beverly Hills 90210’ and more recently had a supporting role in ‘Scream 2’.

Joshua Jackson had also made an appearance in ‘Scream 2’ and was on his way to ‘Cruel Intentions’ and a lead role in ‘Dawson’s Creek’.

Tara Reid is probably better known as an early example of the new breed of Hollywood “hellcats”, but she came to this film on the back of her role as Bunny Lebowski in ‘The Big Lebowski’ and went on to feature in ‘Cruel Intentions’.

Michael Rosenbaum ended up with one of the lead roles in ‘Smallville’ and has now appeared in 140 plus episodes of that TV show.

Natasha Gregson Wagner, whose brief appearance at the beginning of the film (memorably singing along to ‘Total Eclipse Of The Heart’) mirrors that of Drew Barrymore in ‘Scream’, is the daughter of Natalie Wood. Her film debut was in ‘Buffy the Vampire Slayer’.

Added to this was some clever casting among the older supporting actors. John Neville had played the title role in Terry Gilliam’s ‘The Adventures of Baron Munchausen’ and was familiar from a recurring role in ‘The X Files’. Robert Englund, playing one of the college professors, was a nice piece of casting for horror film fans.

The film is almost stolen by Loretta Devine, playing an eager squeaky-voiced campus security officer who dreams of being like Foxy Brown and ends up getting her chance to be just that.

The film grossed $72.5 million worldwide against a production budget of $14 million. A sequel, ‘Urban Legends: Final Cut’, was released in 2000, achieving a $39 million worldwide gross. Only Loretta Devine from the original cast returned for this film. A direct-to-DVD third instalment, ‘Urban Legends: Bloody Mary’, appeared in 2005. I have not seen either of these films.



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