Negative Attention

3/22/2013

Photobucket Pictures, Images and PhotosHow I picture the angry birds of Twitter.

I never imagined I would have to defend Fringe and its showrunner, Joel Wyman, after it ended, especially since I loved it more than any other show and it amazes me when someone doesn't get it or has something disparaging to say about the acting. That just proves that they don't know a flawless performance when they see one (i.e. John Noble as Walter Bishop). It also had the best finale I've ever seen. Sadly, that amazing, finely-crafted episode created a rift between those who were dedicated to the show and those who were only obsessive fans of Anna Torv. Those obsessives vehemently attacked Wyman for weeks following the finale, decrying what they saw as a reduced role for Olivia. They couldn't understand the creative decisions that made for a beautifully told final season and had nothing but complaints. Just to be clear, I'm not talking about everyone who was disappointed with the end, only those few who inundated Joel with messages of hate.

I tried to ignore them, but they were just so nasty that I eventually had to do something, anything. I've taken to blocking them and reporting the worst ones for spam, as have some others I know, though I can still see their unwanted and unwarranted tweets when I look through Joel's mentions. It got to the point that one of these pieces of trash even told Joel to go to Hell, and something even worse that I don't feel like repeating again. If these were normal, level-headed, emotionally stable human beings who really liked Joel as a person in the first place, then no decision he made for a work of fiction would have affected them so much that they would turn so vile. They act like the events and characters in Fringe were real and Joel was a vindictive God. These people need some mental help. They claim he broke their hearts, so it seems they tried to do the same to him, even though he's been nothing but kind and appreciative. These people are just cruel, their harassment inexcusable. They seem to have quieted down a bit in the past couple of weeks, but they are back the minute he gets on. That means they have notifications set for someone they no longer like so they don't miss a chance to show him their dissatisfaction. Joel already apologized a number of times to these vindictive piranhas, but still they don't relent and just demand more flesh. 

We all have opinions and you can't please everyone, but people who relentlessly badger someone for their creative direction should have their Internet privileges taken away for a year. They think everyone who loved the Fringe finale, and all of season 5 for that matter, are sheep, brown-nosers, or unintelligent, when it is they who are proving they're not all that bright by spending so much time being generally awful people and railing against a show that didn't fail in any way. (Those who are still fans could argue that last point, but let's not. Every moment was perfect for me.) They seem to not understand loss or how a series like this needs to be dynamic to hold interest. They seem to want characters to be unrealistically steady and unchanging, as in the most formulaic and unimaginative of procedurals. If the formula is messed with then they become irate. From the beginning, Fringe was always trying new things, so it should have come as no surprise when things changed. 

Complaining to the showrunner more than two months after the end is pathetic. They just want attention even if it's negative. One of them said talking to Joel was like talking to a brick wall that's allergic to criticism. All he was trying to do was be civil. All they were trying to do was start a fight. Is Joel supposed to embrace unconstructive criticism? They seem to feel like the story was theirs to do with as they pleased and that Joel took something away from them. Even though he's busy with a new show and has barely been on Twitter since Fringe ended, they continue to try making him feel terrible for the decisions he thought were right for the show. And he WAS right. That's the thing that gets me. I wouldn't change a frame. All I would do is add more if there had been more time.

According to the arguments of the unsatisfied and uncommonly rude, Olivia wasn't the same, just a shell of her former self. How was that a bad thing to explore? Some viewers apparently preferred she not be a vulnerable, fallible, three-dimensional person. An unchanging character would be unengaging indeed. Olivia was not weakened as a character by falling in love with Peter or becoming a mother. She was strengthened by being relatable and real, and she is most certainly the same person we fell in love with, just with more depth. She was distraught after losing her daughter so suddenly and so soon after getting her back, but she stepped up when Peter was losing himself. Olivia eventually found solace in Etta's memory and the hope of changing the past, which gave her the will to go on, to survive, and to win. This was a journey she had to take to save the world and her family. Without sacrifice, it wouldn't feel like much of a fight. It would feel false and there would be no suspense. Life is not predictable or controllable, and that point was driven home this season, making for an epic end to a beautiful story. 

Despite the fact that a handful of former fans think she was reduced, Olivia was grieving and the show gave her time to do so. Anyone who's gone through an emotional roller coaster like this will be able to relate and will recognize it for the authentic depiction it was for every character. If you've been fortunate enough to not have lost someone and you're wondering why Olivia didn't just snap out of it, think of the person you love most. Now imagine that tomorrow they don't come home. They will never come home again. They will never smile at you again. You will never hug them again. Their laughter will never fill the house again. Their chair will be forever empty at the dinner table. Your every waking moment for weeks will be filled with tears, for months will be filled with what-ifs, for years will be filled with longing to see them one more time. Can you understand that? It's horrible. Now think about Olivia's journey (and everyone's) in season 5 with that in mind. Is it a little clearer? Fringe was about a family, not the quantity of one actor's lines, and it was depicted throughout not at the expense of any character.

Yet still the goblins (don't want to sully the good name of trolls) want Joel to admit he made a mistake. Why would he do that when he doesn't believe he did? Most fans are on his side. He is proud of what he and the entire cast and crew accomplished with Fringe. This final season genuinely came from Joel's heart and they are berating him for it. They are not using constructive criticism. They are downright bullying. They are angry with him for daring to turn Olivia into a mother while also complaining that she didn't get enough time with her child. What kind of schizophrenic argument is that? They complain that the final moments were with Peter and Etta instead of Olivia and Etta, though Olivia was in the last few minutes. She wasn't ignored. The season started with that scene between Peter and Etta at the beginning of the invasion, so it ended artfully with Etta finally reaching her father and Olivia looking content: a rare moment. And the final minute with only Peter was exactly right. It was the reveal of where Walter's white tulip had gone, a simply and beautifully done quiet moment between father and son separated by time.

But it was not all about fathers and sons, as the detractors keep trying to spin it. It just happened that there were three fathers and two sons compared to one mother and one daughter. Most of the final season was about the devastation of losing a daughter, so there's half of the argument torn to shreds right there. And it's not even about gender, but about parents losing a child. From the pilot episode we knew something had happened to Peter as a child because of Walter's concern, but we never had a clue how sad and epic it would turn out to be. Of course there was often going to be a focus on Walter and Peter, because Peter's sickness started this whole thing in motion. As I've reiterated time and again for the persistently wrong, Fringe may have started with Olivia, but it was soon revealed to be about three interwoven lives, three people who would become a family. Without Walter losing Peter, there would have been no reason for him to cross over, to put both universes in jeopardy. That's an important piece they seem to forget when making their argument, but it could have had the dame emotional impact had it been a mother crossing universes to save her daughter. Though, I can't imagine anyone taking John Noble's place and being as amazing. If the story was different in that way, would the complaints of the final season then be that it was only about mothers? I wonder. Those obsessed with Anna Torv would probably still find something. Only the Red Universe knows.

If you're one of the people who didn't get it, I'm sorry Fringe didn't live up to your ideal of what the final season should have been, but you have to recognize that most don't agree with you. Joel Wyman's direction for the final season was perfectly realized, and his writing on the episodes he wrote (this is a big collaborative effort after all) was beautiful, the dialogue true to life. If you try to argue your baseless points with rudeness, you need to think about your behavior. Talk to others that felt the same, but it's time to leave Joel alone. No matter what, Fringe is a work of fiction and you're just clamoring for attention. Find a new show that won't disappoint, something not serialized and without character development. That way you can never be disappointed with character changes or story direction precisely because there are none. Grow up a bit and you may find that you understand better the choices made for your former favorite show.

You know what I hate even more than the complaints? I had to take time out of reading September's Notebook this last week to write this. Drawing the altered Twitter bird was fun, though.

Maybe This Time

3/17/2013

Walking down the rail
a horn bellows in the night

A low rumbling in the distance
pulls the darkness closer

Thinking about the ease of it
wishing things were different

Screeching of metal on metal
breaks through the haze of indecision

A rush of wind as it passes by
clears the mind

No...
not tonight.


Just because this came to me out of the blue and I haven’t written anything in years besides a zombie haiku. Miranda Doerfler (@docsaico) seemed to like this and said I should share. One must never ignore the Doc. ;) I was going to draw something to go along with it, but if I waited any longer it would never get done. By the way, that zombie haiku, along with many others, can be found in Haiku of the Living Dead. While you're browsing Amazon, I would enthusiastically suggest checking out Miranda's Dead Inside.

Dead Man Down Has a Pulse

3/16/2013

"Always kill the devil quickly when you find him."

If you see a movie this weekend, consider Dead Man Down, a nicely paced and well-acted revenge thriller with substance and realism to the characters. If nothing else, it made me care about Colin Farrell (Victor) as both an actor and a person. I also found out that Noomi Rapace (Beatrice) can affect me without saying a word. They play damaged and vulnerable characters and deliver the spare dialogue with truly haunted looks. And Terrence Howard's (Alphonse) portrayal of a paranoid drug kingpin, unraveling from months of threats and friends dying around him was intriguing. It was moodily filmed and tense in the right places, giving me the desire to rent director Niels Arden Oplev's original The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo to see more of his work.

As a bonus for any Fringe fan, the screenplay was written by Joel Wyman, who recently took that  Iittle seen but incredible show to the finish line in a fitting series finale. Strip everything strange away and Fringe was about connection and hope, the same message on display in Dead Man Down, though told in a far different way. 

"Even the most damaged heart can be mended."

More specifically it's about a man seeking to destroy those who caused him unbearable pain and finding an unexpected reason to want to live through his vendetta. It's about broken people on a path of vengeance finding something more. It's not mindless action, but has depth that you wouldn't expect from the way it was advertised. That depth some don't see or care for, but Joel wove emotion in through the bullets, because that's what makes a story worth telling. Though it may put off people just looking for guns and explosions, it's a great contrast to have quiet moments of connection to make the situation feel more real and urgent.

It's sad to think I wouldn't have gone to the theater if I didn't know the writer. Then I would have missed a movie that had me smiling easily whenever the leads were together and made me wish it were just a little longer to get more screen time for two secondary characters. Vic's friend in the gang, Darcy (Dominic Cooper), is a guy with a new baby who's outlook on life has changed for the better, but he gets closer and closer to finding out who's threatening the big boss, Alphonse. Even though he's one of the not so good fellas, we really like him, so we don't want him to get to the truth. And there was Beatrice's sweet and lovely mother (Isabelle Huppert), flitting around their apartment making cookies and encouraging her daughter to live her life. 

Unfortunately, Dead Man Down was not well-promoted, the commercials were not great, and it's up against Oz the Great and Powerful. Oz was also poorly rated by quite a few, but it's visually stunning and family friendly, so Dead Man Down probably won't even last another two weeks in smaller theaters. There are also a lot of negative reviews out there, which I don't give much weight to since I've already seen it and love it. A common complaint about countless movies and shows seems to be plot holes. A lot of the ones I've experienced more a case of reviewer forgetfulness. Not every detail is always necessary to spell out. Some things are to be inferred. That doesn't make them holes, ruin the story, or make it incomprehensible. In Dead Man Down, I never wondered how or why something happened.

"Note that a Plot Hole is inherently a contradiction: A Plot element that is merely left unexplained is not a Plot Hole unless its occurrence is impossible according to the setting's rules."

None of these occurrences were impossible according to the rules. I could possibly have missed a minor one, maybe a small thing in the end that someone mentioned, but it would be a spoiler. One good review wondered why it took Vic so long to avenge his family, calling it a plot hole. That's not a hole. He needed to infiltrate the gang in order to get to the one who gave the order. That would take time, and he had to be careful in order to get as many as possible. Another character, Gregor (F. Murray Abraham), mentioned this, so we are well aware. Remember the quote at the top? Gregor was talking to Vic. I think Vic not only wanted to be careful and do this right, but he was also vindictive (rightfully so) and loved the cat-and-mouse game he was playing. They also asked: What did Cooper's character hope to gain? Darcy explained this during a car ride with Vic. He wanted to climb the ranks to better provide for his family. Of course, there was also the threat to all their lives: a motivator for anyone.

Violence was another criticism even though so many R-rated movies of this sort are worse. They're just nitpicking now to try and prove their point. I'm not squeamish and intolerant, nor do I have a high threshold for violence, so believe me when I tell you that the movie was very easy to watch. There is a lot of gunplay and death, but it's not gratuitous for the most part. The main character is a broken man avenging his family, not a psychopath. Though there was a torture scene involving rats, it was over quickly, the bad guy mercifully shot. There has been far worse in Game of Thrones, for example.

Another thing I read was that it was complicated and there were absurdities that kept piling on. I lump these together because I need very few words to respond. I would take absurdities to mean ridiculously unrealistic events. Nothing such happened. Complicated? Not really, unless the reviewer forgot they were a viewer and instead thought they were one of the movie's antagonists, who were all in the dark. They deemed complicated something that was pretty straightforward.

I often feel like many reviewers are pretending to be smarter than they are, professing to love some movies that in my eyes couldn't be less appealing, and conveying by their tone that anyone who likes something they don't is an imbecile. I know of one who's ratings are always shown in Entertainment Weekly alongside a sampling of others, and she consistently gives below average or failing grades to just about everything. She's very consistent in hating everything I find fun, exciting, or moving. I've seen her crack a C only a couple times. She has to be miserable being unable to find joy in her job.

I've read reviews that guided me towards movies that turned out to be boring and lacked something (vibrancy, forward momentum) yet were considered to be great cinema. I have also avoided movies because of reviews and they turned out to be very likeable. So read others' opinions, but make up your own mind. Reviews are only suggestions, subjective recommendations, and you should find a reviewer with whom you often agree. 

Just for reference, I love movies such as The Princess Bride, Jurassic Park, The Dark Knight, Shaun of the Dead, and The Avengers. I love shows like Fringe, The Walking Dead, Doctor Who, Supernatural, and Friends. I love sweetness and heart, but don't like most romatic comedies, which are often very poorly done. I love when the bullets fly and John McClane gets beat up. I love things that are gorgeously written and showcase flawless acting. I love movies that give me an appreciation of an actor I never gave a second thought to before. I love combining all of the above. If something is by Tim Burton or Quentin Tarantino, I generally don't understand the appeal, though I did like, but not love, Edward Scissorhands and Kill Bill. I will give anything a chance. I just don't like pervasive weirdness without hilarity and relatability. I don't like violence for the sake of violence, but I like war movies (The Hurt Locker) and vampire stories (The Passage). And I only get to see a movie in the theater every couple of months, so I invariably choose what I know I will not be disappointing. Maybe that will help you gauge whether or not you'll like Dead Man Down.

If you do end up liking it, or even if you don't, please give Fringe a shot; it was every bit a work of art, created by many passionate people and supported by amazing fans that kept it alive. Joel Wyman is also executive producing JJ Abrams' new near-future android-human cop show, possibly titled InHuman or Human (not yet official), so that should tell you that Abrams has faith in him no matter how a single movie does at the box office.


Related Articles //

While I disagree with certain points in some of these reviews, I like them for being level-headed. These are the kinds of reviewers that can be fair. If you want to see dissenting opinions, I encourage you to do so. I just won't list them here. They annoyed me too much.

Pop Culture Nexus - Dead Man Down Review

The Globe and Mail - Dead Man Down a Thriller Whose Intricate Twists Actually Pay Off

Screen Rant - Dead Man Down Review

TV Guide - Dead Man Down: Review

Movie Guide - Dead Man Down: Surprisingly Riveting and Redemptive

KCCI - Love and Revenge Get Gritty in Dead Man Down

LA Times - Dead Man Down Twists Itself into Knots

Hollywood Reporter - Dead Man Down: Film Review

In Love with Iron Man 3's Trailer

3/13/2013

Iron Man is one of my favorite movies, Tony Stark one of my favorite characters, and it's all because Robert Downey, Jr. is one of my favorite actors. It's the kind of movie that is particularly memorable, combining fun and humor with depth and explodey bits. So, shame on me for forgetting to watch this new trailer. What have I been doing? I guess it was work. And then I was busy cleaning and hurting myself on the weekend. Then I took this week off to relax and played games. So, now I'm the last person on Earth to see this. But if you're reading this then maybe you're the last. ;)

Also take a look at EW's trailer deep dive. It reminded me of PopCultureNexus' hilarious (and heartfelt) Fringe recaps.

Grumpy Cat Versus The Fifth Element

3/12/2013

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Grumpy Cat! Aww, I love her. She has such an adorable face. But if I were going to choose a shirt, it would have to be the competition. I love The Fifth Element, a rare movie that grew on me, but I don't have a t-shirt telling the world. The first time I saw it, I had no idea what happened. It was so strange. The second time, though, somethng clicked. It was weird, yes, but it was also funny and fun. So many shirts, so little space. If I were rich I would have to have a walk-in closet dedicated to fun t-shirts and other television- and movie-related apparel.

You have less than 7 hours to get one or both of these. I would have written about it earlier, but I kept getting interrupted. They go for $11 each.

TeeFury.com

More Than Just Darkness

3/11/2013

I haven't posted my weapons since December?! Oops. Well, here they are. Go to Shiny Dangerous Things to read about Feeding Darkness, Szerszeń, Defiance, Corrosion, Lyssa, and Miranda.

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Fluffball Pup

3/07/2013

I think I just died from the absolutely ridiculous cuteness of this puppy, who really can only be described as a cotton ball with paws. Don't know why I haven't been posting adorable animals until now. I watch these kinds of things all the time and family is always sending pictures of animals that are so cute I just have to squeal.

Michonne: Impossible Not to Love

3/07/2013

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Shit! This is awesome, and I just realized I have not one The Walking Dead shirt. I've seen some before and they're always great, but it doesn't happen when I'm buying. I have other things to pay for and I have so many tees right now. I just bought a Friends quote shirt a couple weeks ago. No, I can't just get this and promise myself not to buy another later. No matter what, I always break that promise. Ugh, so hard not to put this one in my cart, though. The artwork is fantastic. Sad now. But if I see a Daryl shirt tomorrow, I won't be able to help myself.

See "Dead Man Down" This Friday

3/07/2013

Dead Man Down is not a movie I normally care to go see in the theaters. On the surface, it looks like a generic revenge story that isn't exciting or original. Many movies truly do nothing different and are boring or ridiculous or outright terrible. I'm giving this one a chance, though, because I know who wrote it and sometimes a trailer just doesn't do justice. Never mind the fact that it stars Noomi Rapace and Colin Farrell, since neither one is really a draw for me. And I didn't see the original The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo, so I can't attest to Niels Arden Oplev's filmmaking skill. What I can tell you is Joel Wyman is a terrific writer with depth and heart, and everything he did on Fringe gives me confidence that at least the writing will stand out.

Update: There's a great review at Indie Wire. They found it deeply contemplative, unexpectedly moving, and full of surprises. Coming from Wyman, I expected nothing less.

This is the trailer for the Twitter event. Much better than the original. You can support Dead Man Down tonight by telling others to go see it on Friday. Get the details here.

Under the Sea with Ariel and Big Daddy

3/06/2013

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It took me a second to see what was going on here. The image in my email was small and dark. I knew it was Ariel by the title, but when I looked closer I saw the familiar "eyes" of a Big Daddy. And when I went to the site I realized that I should be calling her Little Sister Ariel. I loooove this shirt. Damn, I wish I thought of this...but then I would have had to have been able to draw it.