October | 2013 | the m0vie blog

Doctor Who: The Doctor’s Daughter (Review)

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Darren

To celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of the longest-running science-fiction show in the world, I’ll be taking weekly looks at some of my own personal favourite stories and arcs, from the old and new series, with a view to encapsulating the sublime, the clever and the fiendishly odd of the BBC’s Doctor Who.

The Doctor’s Daughter originally aired in 2008.

Not what you’d call a natural parent, are you?

They stole a tissue sample at gunpoint and processed it. It’s not what I call natural parenting.

Rubbish. My friend Nerys fathered twins with a turkey baster. Don’t bother her.

You can’t extrapolate a relationship from a biological accident.

Er, Child Support Agency can.

– Donna and the Doctor discussing parenting

The Doctor’s Daughter is the weakest script of the fourth season. It’s just a mess of high concepts and ideas and in-jokes mashed together and then cut down to fit into a forty-five minute time slot. It’s a fundamentally flawed episode that has some meritorious elements, but a whole host of other ingredients that just fall flat. It’s the speed bump in the fourth season of the show, Russell T. Davies’ final season of Doctor Who, which had started out of the gate so very strong.

I suppose the real positive of The Doctor’s Daughter is that it doesn’t cause too much damage as it stumbles.

The ball’s in his court…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Television | Tagged: arts, bbc, david tennant, Davies, doctor, Doctor's Daughter, DoctorWho, fiction, literature, Martha Jones, Online Writing, russell t. davies, science fiction, Stephen Greenhorn, steven moffat, tardis | Leave a comment »

The X-Files – Darkness Falls (Review)

Posted on October 28, 2013 by Darren

Darkness Falls is the best script Chris Carter has written so far. It it is far superior to Fire or Space or Young at Heart or The Jersey Devil or even The Pilot. It’s quite possibly the strongest normal “monster-of-the-week” episode that Carter ever wrote, discounting his work on “special” episodes (like Post-Modern Prometheus or Triangle) or even some mythology stories (I’m quite fond of Redux).

Darkness Falls is – at its most basic – just a very strong monster-of-the-week installment, hitting all the right buttons to provide an atmospheric horror thriller.

If a tree falls in the woods…

Continue reading →

Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Barack Obama, Canada, chris carter, Dana Scully, Darkness Falls, Martin Luther King, mulder, mulder and scully, National Security Agency, National Security Archive, National Wilderness Preservation System, Oregon Territory, Outdoors, Post-Modern Prometheus, Recreation, scully, Standing Bear, Steve Humphreys, United States, vietnam, Vietnam War, Washington, Wilderness Act, x-files | 6 Comments »

Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. – The Girl in the Flower Dress (Review)

Posted on October 25, 2013 by Darren

The first few episodes of any new show are about finding the right balance, striking the right tone. You experiment a bit, you figure out what works and what doesn’t, you try a number of new things knowing that only a few will pay off. The problem with Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. isn’t that none of the show’s experiments are coming to fruition. It’s that the show seems completely afraid to try anything new at all.

The Girl in the Flower Dress is the show’s fifth episode, but it already feels like something of a reheat, taking the best parts of The Pilot and The Asset, and synthesising them into a single familiar story.

The problem is that the best bits of The Pilot and The Asset weren’t anything to write home about.

A chip off the old block…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Television | Tagged: american dream, art, Board game, brian michael bendis, captain america, Chan, Coulson, Gregg Clark, magic, NCIS, Phil Coulson, Ruth Negga, Skye, stan lee | 11 Comments »

Doctor Who: The Poison Sky (Review)

Posted on October 25, 2013 by Darren

The Poison Sky originally aired in 2008.

They’ve taken it. I’m stuck on Earth like, like an ordinary person. Like a human. How rubbish is that? Sorry, no offense, but come on.

– take that, Jon Pertwee!

Like The Sontaran Stratagem before it, The Poison Sky is pretty effective at accomplishing what it sets out to do. The first two-parter was always a troubled part of the Davies era, and so it feels strangely appropriate that the production team should manage to nail it on the fourth and final go-round. The Poison Sky isn’t the best episode of the show’s superlative fourth season, but neither it nor The Sontaran Stratagem are the worst, either. Instead, it’s a solidly entertaining feature-length adventure featuring the return of various old favourites from the classic show (U.N.I.T.! Sontarans!) and the revived series (Martha! the Valiant!).

It is goofy, silly, and fluffy, but it’s entertaining fluff.

His finger on the button…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Television | Tagged: Dalek, Davies, doctor, DoctorWho, Donna, Earth, fires of pompeii, Helen Raynor, Jon Pertwee, jonpertwee, patrick troughton, Poison Sky, Sarah Jane Smith, Sontaran, Sontaran Stratagem, Third Doctor | Leave a comment »

The X-Files – Shapes (Review)

Posted on October 25, 2013 by Darren

Shapes feels like something of a companion piece to Shadows. Both are very traditional horror monster stories, feeling a little dated and out of place among the more modern paranoia of The X-Files. Shapes might carefully avoid using the word “werewolf”, instead dressing up the classic movie monster in loose fitting Native American mythology, but it feels like an attempt to pay homage to one of the definitive Hollywood monsters. Unfortunately, like Shadows, it winds up feeling a little stale and tired, a little too familiar and cliché.

It’s a werewolf story that lacks bite.

Chew on this…

Continue reading →

Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Charles Manson, Comet, Cookie Monster, David Nutter, flash, games, Indian reservation, mulder, Native American, Park ranger, Race and ethnicity in the United States Census, Sesame Street, The CW Television Network, United States, X-File | Leave a comment »

Watch! Captain America: The Winter Soldier Trailer!

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Darren

The trailer for Captain America: The Winter Soldier has arrived. Based on Ed Brubaker’s acclaimed run on Captain America, the film sees the iconic comic book character adapting to life in the 21st century while discovering that perhaps the past isn’t quite as closed-off as he might have suspected. It actually looks quite intriguing – like it might take the look at S.H.I.E.L.D. and it relevance to the modern world in a way that Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. has been so energetically avoiding. Indeed, it looks like it might be a S.H.I.E.L.D.-centric movie, which is a smart bit of world-building and a nice way of exploring the character and his themes. Check it out below.

Filed under: Movies | Tagged: arts, avengers, captain america, Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Cobie Smulders, ed brubaker, Emily VanCamp, Winter Soldier | 3 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Thor – The Dark World

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Darren

Thor was a gem. I’d argue it remains the best of the Marvel Studios films, expertly and enthusiastically embracing the heightened melodrama of comic book storytelling and boiling it down to faux Shakespearean elegance. With Kenneth Branagh directing and a fantastic cast, the film hit on a lot of the old-fashioned comic book spectacle. Yes, it was sheer nonsense, but there’s something surprisingly affecting about hearing Anthony Hopkins intone Stan Lee’s decidedly corny dialogue. This is sheer unadulterated pop, filtered down and distilled.

A lot of that carries over to Thor: The Dark World. “Some believe that before the universe, there was nothing,” Hopkins’ Odin assured us in the trailer, in a narration omitted from the film. “They’re wrong. There was darkness…” Sure, physicists and scientist might weep at the suggestion, but Hopkins is able to imbue the ridiculous line with a surreal gravitas. “I like the way you explain things,” Jane tells Thor at one point, and the British accents lend the goofiness a strangely convincing air.

It doesn’t make any sense, and it’ll hurt your head too much if you think about it, but that’s entirely the point. This is a movie about a Norse god with an English accent and flying hammer.

It’s… wait for it… hammer time!

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Alan Taylor, Dark World, jon favreau, joss whedon, kenneth branagh, marvel, Marvel Studios, stan lee, thor, Thor: Dark World, Thor: The Dark World | 6 Comments »

Doctor Who: The Sontaran Stratagem (Review)

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Darren

The Sontaran Stratagem originally aired in 2008.

Sontar-Ha!

– Sontaran hakka

The expectations for the opening two-parter of any Russell T. Davies season are markedly different from the expectations surrounding the second two-parter or even the season finalé – just as the expectations for the opening few episodes are different from the expectations for a mid-season stand-alone. It should go without saying, but it’s worth stressing at this point. The opening two-parter of a Davies season isn’t meant for the adults in the audience – it’s traditionally aimed towards the kids, with big epic iconic monsters, ridiculous set-pieces, broadly-defined settings and little room for nuance.

That’s not to excuses messes like World War III or Evolution of the Daleks, but simply to place them in context. The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky aren’t quite as profound or weighty as The Fires of Pompeii or Planet of the Ood. Instead, they offer bombastic spectacle, goofy visuals and a heightened sense of absolutely everything. In other words, The Sontaran Stratagem and The Poison Sky combine to form the strongest opening two-parter of the Davies era.

They hardly represent a crowning artistic accomplishment for the show, but they do a great job of accomplishing what they set out to do.

There’s a potato eyes joke here, but I just can’t make it work…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Television | Tagged: Dalek, DoctorWho, Evolution of the Daleks, List of UNIT personnel, Martha, Poison Sky, russell t. davies, Sarah Jane Smith, Sontaran, Sontaran Stratagem, tardis, UNIT, world war iii | Leave a comment »

The X-Files – Miracle Man (Review)

Posted on October 24, 2013 by Darren

The biggest problem with Miracle Man is that it’s a Howard Gordon script. I don’t mean to diminish Gordon’s contributions to the show. Gordon is one of the strongest contributors to this rocky first season (only Morgan and Wong can claim to be stronger, and they also have their misfires), and he – along with frequent partner Alex Gansa – seems to have the strongest grip on Mulder as a character. And therein lies the most fundamental problem with Miracle Man, the horribly clumsy and muddled ending aside.

Miracle Man feels like it focuses on the wrong lead. It tackles themes and subject matter the show would revisit more successfully in the years ahead, in episodes like Revelations and All Souls. However, the religion-themed episodes in the years ahead would typically focus on Scully – contrasting her religious faith with her scientific skepticism to provide Anderson with some of the best work she’d do on the show.

Instead, Miracle Man digs its character hooks into Mulder, tying back to the disappearance of Samantha for no reason other than “well, this story needs to be about Mulder for some reason.”

Symbolism!

Continue reading →

Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Alex Gansa, Catholicism, chris carter, Christian Science, Dana Scully, Fox Mulder, god, Hartley, Howard Gordon, Lazarus, Mary Baker Eddy, Miracle Man, mulder, Rex Humbard, Robert Tilton, Samuel, scully, The Smoking Man, United States, X-File, x-files | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: Planet of the Ood (Review)

Posted on October 23, 2013 by Darren

Planet of the Ood originally aired in 2008.

How many Ood in total?

I’d say about two thousand, sir.

We can write them off. That’s what insurance is for.

– Halpen and Kess remind us that these are not nice people

Planet of the Ood is a bit blunt. And by “a bit”, I mean “a lot.” It’s an allegorical exploration of unchecked capitalism and slavery, using the science-fiction setting to tell a story with a familiar moral.Then again, Planet of the Ood largely works because that moral remains rather timely and relevant, but also because it’s a fantastically produced piece of television. It’s fast and pacey, it looks stylish, it has a fantastic cast and an efficient script. Sure, there are rough edges, but Planet of the Ood continues a fairly strong start for the fourth season.