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Fringe: Os (2011)
How far would you go to save your son?
I am giving this episode a 10. It reflects the augment Walter is going trough. We have had this before, with the "vampire" episode, but this is one more substantial, since it is not about life and dead, but based on quality of life. Makes me even more cohesive.
How far would you go to save a loved one? I leave it up to you.
Another reason I give this episode a 10 is the beginning, that reflects the CEO of the biggest corporation on the planet, coping with the security guard. (played awesome by Garcia, by the way). Just that is awesome enough to high-rate this episode.
The Curse of Civil War Gold: The Return (2019)
Boxcar from another Universe
I appreciate their effort to dig into civil war history, that is the reason I give this a 5 star rating. A Boxcar is 50 feet long, and 9.5 feet wide, and max 11 feet high. Some might be a bit longer, but the width has always been the same, up to today. So they find a "Boxcar" on the bottom of the lake, that measures 14.5 feet x 13.5 feet. Right there, they could have called AMTRAK, or maybe school teacher, or just go to Wikipedia, to find out that there has never been, and never will be a boxcar that wide. Instead they rent some (most likely) expensive x-ray machine to be placed into the lake, to confirm the 14.5 x 13.5 size. Then they are still convinced it is a boxcar. I understand their enthusiasm and high hopes to discover the gold, but a boxcar that wide could only have come from a parallel universe, where boxcar scales are different.
Fringe: Of Human Action (2009)
Sadistic Kid on his way to visit his mother
Tyler Carson discovers his mother has not died in a car accident, and that she is still alive. So he decides to find a way to go visit her.
There is two ways to travel to her:
A: By normal transportation - maybe have friends helping him, or
B: Highjacking and forcing people to drive him.
He picks B.
His plan was most likely to use guns, knifes, and grenades to force people to drive him to his mother, and killing anyone standing in his way. By good timing, he accidentally ingests an experimental drug his father developed, which gives him the ability to control other people minds - making him more powerful than just with ordinary guns or grenades.
Again, he has the choice to just "mind-control" someone to drive him peacefully to his mother, instead the evil kid decides to take advantage of any person holstering a weapon, and makes them either shoot them selfs, or kill others. All the killings were completely unnecessary for his mission, and took only place for the kids personal amusement.
Although the idea for this episode was genius, I was really upset about the ending, where the kid is made a victim. I was hoping someone puts a bullet in the evil kids brain to stop his killing spree, or at least he is arrested and charged for all the murders he committed, instead they just tell him to go home. I understand it is not his fault he ingested the drug, but it was his personal decision to kill people for his own amusement. It kind of reminds me of when a maniac goes amok shooting people, then the news media makes it look like it's not the shooters fault, but the weapons fault.
Good plot, wrong message!
Fringe: In Which We Meet Mr. Jones (2008)
David Robert Jones
This is indeed my favorite episode. What better way could David Robert Jones have chosen, to get attention for the extraordinary environment he created? His main objective, was to "show off", and geez, did he! Then he downsized his advantages during his introduction to a lady (Olivia). How modest! Only a real gentlemen would act like this.
That man is a real genius. He is developing events and viruses that Walter and Bell wrote as theories. I think Jones IQ surpasses Walters, and Bell's by many lengths. All he wants is attention, and boy, does he do a great job at it.
I always wished, he would become a key element at the end of the show.
Fringe: The Arrival (2008)
Great Episode, yet way ahead
My biggest question was: What in the world was that thing that appeared, then disappeared?
Answer, after watching all episodes: A beacon, that will help finding the "Observers" son in the far future. As we know by now, the "Observer" is present during every main event that ever happened. Even before Marie Antoinette's destiny. His main goal is to change events, so that at the end, his son will live, without causing suspicion from the other Observers, who have a completely different goal than September (The Observer).
This is a very important episode. September (The Observer) is hiding the beacon that will once in a while appear, then disappear. Walter Bishop owes him his and Peters life, and therefor goes out of his way to help September. Walter, knowing he will be ending up in St. Clairs for helping him - the last thing he wants - goes all in.
This episode reflects the true and deep ethics of Walter. Would this have happened before Walter had pieces of his brain removed, it could have winded up completely different. But it didn't.
Fringe: Pilot (2008)
It will all make sense, here some hints:
I must admit: I have watched all episodes before writing this, meaning: I am bias.
This first episode sets the tone for at least the first 3 season. Someone is trying to "show off" with a biochemical attack on a flight from Hamburg to Boston. To solve the case, and to save her lover John Scott, Olivia gets out of her way, and successfully recruits the key persons to save John. Her lover John turns against her, and (semi) dies later on. His last words to Olivia "ask why Broyles sent you to the storage unit" got stuck in my head for a long time. It could mean that Broyles wanted Olivia to be out of his hair during the investigation, or it could be that Broyles knew that John will be exposed to the chemicals, and wanted to test Olivia on how far she would go to save him.
Here is the facts:
1. The chemicals used on the plane were administrated by David Robert Jones
2. John Scott worked inside the FBI as an undercover NSA agent
3. Walter Bishop architected the biochemicals used on the flight (although he doesn't remember)
4. William Bell's plan is to start a war between Universes
5. Nina Sharp is loyal to William Bell
6. David Robert Jones plan is to "show off" his potential to his idol William Bell, who is a father figure to him - yet fired him from Massiv Dynamic years ago.
7. David Robert Jones is using the ZFT Manuscript written by Walter Bishop (Jones thinks it was written by William Bell) to impress Bell. The last chapters of ZFT containing "ethics and morals" have been removed, most likely by William Bell.
8. Jones goal is to one day work for his idol William Bell again
Those facts should help new watchers going trough season 1-3. At some point, there will be a new time line that will change quite a few items stated above, yet most protagonists will stay in character, and events will keep coming.
More spoilers: The last season will play in the future, where everything we learned up to then only has marginal meanings, except for the ethical standards of each character, and the reason there was an "Observer" interfering once in a while. Frankly, from the view of a scientist, the last season sucks. But the end of the show is outstanding, and it will all make sense.
Teenage Zombies (1959)
Dorky, but kind of amusing
Six teenagers decide to go waterskiing. Four of them show up, two don't. They charter a small boat with a 10HP engine, and I was wondering: How are they going to pull a water-skier, going 5MPH? Thankfully, they all forgot to bring their water-skis. They decide to just go boating, and discover a mysterious island. No one has ever heard of that island, or seen it.
The island is inhabited by a mad lady scientist, a man in a gorilla suit who is the scientists test object, and her servant, a Quasimodo lookalike, who is capturing the four teenagers and locks them up in a cage, to be future test objects.
The two left behind teenagers start looking for their waterskiing friends, and take the local sheriff to the mystery island. As they get there, the mad scientist lady has two (Russian?) Agents visiting, one of them shoots the sheriff. Then a fist fight breaks out, the gorilla-man gets loose and attacks Quasimodo.
The acting is very dull, except for the teenagers. They put in a lot of effort to emotionalize their lines with supporting body language and face expressions. I appreciate that.
Typical lame low budget movie. I wish they could have afforded a better boat to be used for a waterskiing scene, or some motorcycle scenes to get some action. There is a scene where a general orders to deploy the whole US Air-force, in order to search for the mad scientist from the air. Why not sweetening it with some archive footage of some jets taking off? Just zero action! At least, one of the girls is wearing shorts.
Enemies Closer (2013)
Good Movie, bad Plot
Xander (Van Damme) needs to retrieve drugs that are dropped on a lake tonight.
To distract the lakes Park Ranger for the night, he sends Kayla and her "boyfriend" the given afternoon to the park, where Kayla fakes an accident, to be saved by the Park Ranger, so she can sneak a date with him, and have him out of the picture for the night. When Henry Taylor (the Park Ranger) saves her, he doesn't give a damn if her boyfriend might be hurt as well, nor does he ask why he abandoned her.
The date doesn't materialize, because Taylor is visited by an ex-army guy who wants to kill him (not related to the drug recovery). The ex-army guy walks Taylor to the lake, puts a gun on his head, and is about kill him.
In the mean time, Van Damme - on his way to recover the drugs - drives his boat by, then decides to aboard his drug recovering operation, in lieu to see why an ex-army guy wants to kill the Park Ranger he wanted so bad out of the picture to begin with. He shines a light on them, then starts a shoot out with the ex-army guy.
Taylor and the ex-army guy decide to work together, to defeat Van Damme from now on. Van Damme fakes the abduction of Taylors date Kayla, radios him, and they meet at a cabin. Taylor, armed with a riffle, meets Van Damme, and his gagged and bound "date-to-be".
Upper hand Park Ranger Taylor, the only one with a gun, stands in front of Van Damme, his gagged date standing next to him. Instead of shooting him, maybe in the leg or so and liberate Kayla, he decides to negotiate. Park Rangers must be very bad at that. Taylor does not negotiate to spare Van Dammes life in exchange for Kayla's life, but Van Damme negotiates with Taylor, to retrieve the drugs for him, since his designated diver has been killed, and THEN let Kayla go. Who is holding the gun? Of course a bad guys shows up, and disarms the Park Ranger.
Taylor escapes, then sets up some Rambo worthy traps, that are actually pretty cool. Although one of the surprised victims that falls into a trap, decides to key his radio before screaming from being spliced up, what notifies Van Damme that Taylor is taking out his buddies.
Once again, Van Damme meets Taylor with his bound "date-to-be" Kayla. He asks Taylor for the last time, to dive for the drugs, which he does. Diving, specially at night can be very exhausting. I would think it took him several hours to get the drugs out of the lake. It is cut to like 2 minutes for the movie, which is fine. Taylor does not decide to fight Van Damme on the boat before he has to endure such exhaustion, he dives first, then he decides to fight him. We all know who wins at the end.
All at all a good action movie, if you had enough alcohol to miss the whole plot, that does not make sense.
Ozark: Fire Pink (2020)
Psycho-Ben
Ben is a real psychopath. He was beating the hell out of someone in a bar, because he didn't like his tie. He really belongs in a mental institution. Right there, that should have been the end of Ben.
Instead, twisted Ruth, gets that useless pile of skunk out, so he can blur out secrets of the cartel, jeopardizing Ruth's life, and the life of the Byrde family.
I was trying to reach out to Ruth: "Why, Ruth? Why do you want to spend one day with that low-life, in exchange for having him, and yourself killed the next day? You're smarter than that!"
Then Wendy saves the day by hiding Ben, and tries to help him again, again, and again, and again. It comes down to if Wendy, her husband and kids, and Ben will be killed; or just Psycho-Ben -- its a no-brainer!
I have the suspicion it wasn't Ben that was cremated after Nelson delivered his body, and that Ben will be back in season 4.
Little Shop of Horrors (1986)
Music
I must admit, this is one rare late music film, beside Marry Poppins, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Annie (all ahead of time), where all the songs match the story line. They don't make musical movies like this anymore. The songs from the beginning of the movie are so strong and emotional, one might think it can only get worse, because there is no step up from there. Guess what, they do get better and more powerful. Indeed one of the best musical movies of the century. It does deserve 10 Stars! As a musician and a writer my self, I am insulted by comments that state the music is lame, because it is just the opposite. I wonder: did the story line come first, or the music?