Tagged: Fringe

REVIEW: John Carter

The problem with being a trendsetter is that if you’re successful, you get imitated time and time again. Such was the fate that befell Edgar Rice Burroughs’ pulp heroes Tarzan and John Carter. The thriller-seeking readers of pulp magazines were enthralled by ERB’s pulse-pounding, straight-forward prose, which was strong in ideas and weak in word craft. A century ago, Burroughs, writing as Norman Bean, serialized his first Martian saga in All-Story between February and July 1912. It found an eager audience and was later collected in book form as A Princess of Mars. Through the years, there came more adventures with and without Carter set on the red planet natives named Barsoom.

I discovered the stories through the compelling Frank Frazetta covers on the Science Fiction Book Club editions and thought the stories were interesting. Clearly I was not alone because time and again, people in comics tried to adapt the stories with varying degrees of success. Similarly, Bob Clampett in the 1930s and then others tried to mount a screen adaptation. While Barsoom proved inspirational to countless writers, artists, and filmmakers, the planet remained elusive. Over the last century, many a story has been set on Mars — from swashbuckler pastiche Gulliver of Mars to Philip K. Dick’s “I Can Remember it for you Wholesale” (a.k.a Total Recall) – meaning our celestial neighbor has been well-mined. (more…)

John Ostrander: Raylan Vs. Raylan

It’s interesting to watch different interpretations on a given character. Later this summer we’ll see Andrew Garfield as Peter Parker/The Amazing Spider-Man and can compare/contrast it with Tobey Maguire’s version in the previous three Spider-Man movies.

For me, it’s even more interesting when you compare two different versions in two different media. You can do that with Spider-Man or any of a number of different superheroes recently. The upcoming Avengers movie will offer that in spades.

The one I’m focusing on here, however, is the character of U.S. Deputy Marshall Raylan Givens, created by Elmore Leonard in a number of short stories and books, the most recent being Raylan. He’s also the central character on FX’s Justified, which just wound up its third season recently.

For many, Elmore Leonard is the best crime novelist writing today and one of America’s best novelists – period. Lots of his stuff has been adapted to movies, including 3:10 to Yuma, twice, and Get Shorty, which resuscitated John Travolta’s career) He’s not always expressed pleasure with adaptations of his work but he’s pleased with Justified which is as should be seeing that he’s listed among the writers for the series and is among the executive producers.

The character of Raylan Givens is a throwback, a frontier type lawman in the modern world.  He’s not above prompting the bad guy to draw on him, dispensing his own kind of justice in a way that works as justifiable homicide. Hence the title. He cuts it a little too close in Miami and gets sent back to Kentucky from whence he came and to which he’s not real keen to return.

The cowboy imagery is re-enforced by the cowboy hat that Raylan habitually wears. In the books and short story, he wears an open road Stetson hat, flat brimmed, similar (according to Leonard) to the hats worn by the Dallas Police at the time of the shooting of Lee Harvey Oswald. In the TV series, it’s a hand-modified Stetson 4x beaver with a basket weave embossed leather hatband, with a three piece buckle set. Does it make a difference? It does to Elmore Leonard who does not care for the TV version. I’ve seen both hats and, well, Elmore Leonard is wrong. There, I said it. And it underscores what has to happen in adapting what works on the page to what works on the screen, big or little. The hat on Justified is a better visual.

Raylan Givens is laconic, iconic, and charismatic, especially as embodied by Timothy Olyphant for the TV series. Elmore Leonard has a great way with dialogue and the TV series stays true to that. It also keeps true to Leonard’s worldview and sense of character. I read somewhere that the producers of the TV series approach the writing by asking, “What Would Elmore Do?”

In watching the series and reading the prose, it’s interesting to see how plot elements in Raylan were taken and adapted to the series, some more successfully than others. There’s a plot involving illegal harvesting of human kidneys that plays better in the novel than in the series, mainly because on TV it gets squeezed in as a subplot and done in essentially one episode.

On the other hand, the TV series has made changes that were brilliant. Boyd Crowder, played by Walton Goggins, dies at the end of the story Fire In the Hole. The TV series wisely let him survive and change and grow into a truly compelling character. Mags Bennett, played by Margo Martindale who won an Emmy for her portrayal, is new to the series, to the best of my knowledge, although her sons are in Raylan along with their father.

There’s a plot involving a coal company and the woman representing it to the community that it has poisoned and that’s about the same in both the book and the series. Elmore Leonard has used elements and characters that have appeared in the series just as the series has used characters and elements that have appeared in the stories.

It’s apples and oranges, I know, but if I had to pick, which would I prefer – the series or the novel? To be honest, I prefer the TV series. The novel, Raylan, is more like a series of linked short stories; each one has its own climax and then it’s on to the next one but there’s no overall climax. Each season of Justified has worked as an entity of its own and reaches a single climax to end a given season.

Both are worth the investment of your time and together they form a sort of alternate universe take on the main character, Raylan Givens. Same guy but slightly different incarnations. It’s a concept familiar to comic book readers or viewers of Fringe. Ah, Fringe. That’s another column at some point in the future.

MONDAY: Mindy Newell

 

 

The Point Radio: ALCATRAZ = LOST 2?

The new Fox Series, ALCATRAZ, might seem a little familiar to LOSTies – there’s JJ Abrams, an island and even Hurley but there’s a lot more hidden in the mystery than you might think. Jorge Garcia and Sarah Jones join us to talk about what you can be sure will be different this time. Plus DC breaks the line and goes to $3.99 on Bat-Books.

The Point Radio is on the air right now – 24 hours a day of pop culture fun for FREE. GO HERE and LISTEN FREE on any computer or mobile device– and please check us out on Facebook right here & toss us a “like” or follow us on Twitter @ThePointRadio.

Wednesday Window-Closing Wrap Up: September 21, 2011

Wow, this one’s even more embarrassing than usual– some of these windows have been open on our browsers since August. Let’s get them out of here…

Nothing will ever make him change his mind. Logic won’t do it. Integrity won’t do it. The evidence of his own two eyes won’t do it. The sage counsel of his most trusted advisors won’t do it. The awareness that he owes his life, and his son’s life, and the lives of everybody he knows, won’t do it. J. Jonah Jameson, publisher of the tabloid Daily Bugle, will never admit that he was wrong.

We just have to clean out our browsers more often…

The Point Radio: More On FRINGE

The Point Radio: More On FRINGE

We continue our look at the upcoming second season of the Fox hit series, FRINGE with both Joshua Jackson and Anna Torv giving us their views on what we can expect. Plus Tyler Perry has a Big Box Office and can you stand the return of Captain Jack Sparrow and The WEEKLY WORLD NEWS?

PRESS THE BUTTONto Get The Point!

And be sure to stay on The Point via iTunes - ComicMix, RSS, MyPodcast.Com or Podbean!

Follow us now on and !

Don’t forget that you can now enjoy THE POINT 24 hours a Day – 7 Days a week!. Updates on all parts of pop culture, special programming by some of your favorite personalities and the biggest variety of contemporary music on the net.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN LIVEFOR FREE or go to GetThePointRadio for more including a connection for mobile phones including iPhone & Blackberrys



The Point Radio: FRINGE Season Two – So?

The Point Radio: FRINGE Season Two – So?

The Fox hit series FRINGE is days away from beginning it’s second season, and we start our exclusive talk with the stars as JOSHUA JACKSON explains why the show isn’t X-FILES, but actually more like FATHER KNOWS BEST. Plus DC drops their own bombshell, The Legion may get Paul back and what does it mean for the rest of us? And just how cool is that Nano, anyway!

PRESS THE BUTTONto Get The Point!

And be sure to stay on The Point via iTunes - ComicMix, RSS, MyPodcast.Com or Podbean!

Follow us now on and !

Don’t forget that you can now enjoy THE POINT 24 hours a Day – 7 Days a week!. Updates on all parts of pop culture, special programming by some of your favorite personalities and the biggest variety of contemporary music on the net.

CLICK HERE TO LISTEN LIVEFOR FREE or go to GetThePointRadio for more including a connection for mobile phones including iPhone & Blackberrys



May TV Season Finales

May TV Season Finales

UPDATE: The original title of this post said SERIES FINALES. My bad– I meant SEASON and typed SERIES. That’ll teach me to write blog posts at 4 AM. (No, it probably won’t.)

The quick hit list. Ladies and gentlemen, start your TiVos:

On ABC:
May 6 – Scrubs at 8p
May 10 – Brothers & Sisters at 10p

On CBS:
May 3 and May 10 – Cold Case two-part sixth season finale at 9p
May 10 – The Amazing Race 14 at 8p; The Unit at 10p
May 11 – The Big Bang Theory at 8p
May 13 – The New Adventures of Old Christine at 8p; Gary Unmarried at 830p
May 14 – CSI at 9p
May 15 – Ghost Whisperer at 8p; Numb3rs at 10p
May 17 – Survivor: Tocantins at 8p
May 18 – How I Met Your Mother at 830p; Two and a Half Men at 9p; Rules of Engagement at 930p; CSI: Miami at 10p
May 19 – NCIS at 8p; The Mentalist at 9p; Without a  Trace at 1001p
May 20 – Criminal Minds at 8p; CSI: NY at 10p

On FOX:
May 8 – Dollhouse at 901p
May 11 – House at 8p
May 12 – Fringe at 9p
May 13 – Lie To Me at 8p
May 14 – Bones at 8p; Hell’s Kitchen at 9p
May 15 – Prison Break (series finale) at 8p
May 16 – MADtv (series finale ) at 11p; Talkshow with Spike Feresten at 12a
May 17 – King of the Hill at 730p; The Simpsons at 8p; Sit Down, Shut Up at 830p; Family Guy at 9p; American Dad at 930p
May 18 – 24 at 8p
May 19 – American Idol Part 1 at 8p (followed by series preview of Glee at 9p)
May 20 – American Idol Part 2 at 8p

On NBC:
April 27 – Chuck at 8p; Heroes at 9p
May 1 – Howie Do It at 8p
May 10 – The Celebrity Apprentice at 8p
May 12 – The Biggest Loser: Couples at 8p
May 14 – Parks and Recreation at 830p; The Office at 9p; 30 Rock at 930p
May 21 – Southland at 10p

Hat tip: Cynopsis.

‘Fringe’ Offers Christmas Recap

‘Fringe’ Offers Christmas Recap

John Noble, who plays Walter Bishop on Fox’s Fringe, has narrated “Happy Fringemas” to the familiar meter of “The Night Before Christmas”.  The video is a recap of the series, which debuted in August, through now as it takes a break for the holidays and is in reruns.



Fringe returns with new episodes in early January.

 

Review: ‘Fringe’ Episode #105

Review: ‘Fringe’ Episode #105

Note: Click here for the last mystery!

Autopsy Report: “Power Hungry”
From Fox: “When it’s discovered that a rather simple man has the ability to harness electricity, dangerous and deadly occurrences follow, and our unlikely trio investigates this super-charged oddity. Meanwhile, Olivia has a high-voltage encounter of a different kind when she is rocked by a blast from her past, and Dr. Bishop turns to his feathered friends and enlists homing pigeons to help him break the case.”

Doctor’s Notes
Hot off the heels of Fringe‘s best episode to date comes its worst. “Power Hungry” is a boring, by-the-numbers procedural that weakly nods its head to the previous installment. Just as [[[Fringe]]] proved its merit as innovating and captivating in “The Arrival,” this episode displays just how boring the high concept show can get.

In the episode, the Fringe crew pursues Joseph Meegar, a man who can discharge high amounts of electricity due to the experiments enacted on him by a scientist named Jacob Fischer. Meanwhile, Olivia deals with the ramifications of her strange visions of former lover John Scott, who is thought to be dead. By episode’s end, Walter reveals that part of John’s consciousness is actually stuck in Olivia’s brain as a result of their mind-melding in the series pilot. Mystery solved.

We’ll save you the trouble by answering the obvious question: Yes, that’s really all that happens this episode in terms of any plot movement. It’s true that John literally being inside of Liv’s head is fairly unique, but the whole figment-of-the-imagination thing has been beaten to death before. The fact that “The Arrival” concludes with John Scott showing up at Olivia’s home is resolved by him being a mental projection is very boring. Maybe it would’ve more exciting if the previous episode’s ending didn’t hinge on the reveal, but it did. As a result, the answer is wholly unsatisfying, as the mystery behind why Massive Dynamic has Scott’s body ends up being a completely separate entity.

(more…)