August | 2014 | the m0vie blog

Picket Fences – Away in the Manger (Review)

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Darren

This August (and a little of September), we’re taking a trip back in time to review the second season of The X-Files. In November, we’ll be looking at the third season. And maybe more.

The crossover that almost was.

Red Museum is a mess of an episode. There are a lot of reasons for that, but perhaps the most obvious is the fact that it was originally intended as a very different story. In fact, Chris Carter had planned to cross The X-Files over with Picket Fences. While The X-Files was airing on Fox, Picket Fences was broadcast on CBS. Perhaps predicting the long-running feud that would evolve between those two networks in the twenty-first century, CBS decided it had better things to do on Friday nights than promote The X-Files.

We can talk about it till the cows come home…

The result is that Chris Carter and David E. Kelley had to hastily re-work their episodes, averting the crossover rather late in the cycle. Carter shifted the location of the story, and had to write a new ending. Kelley seems to have been a bit more casual, with Away in the Manger feeling like an episode that takes place perpendicular (if not quite overlapping) to Red Museum. The result is curious, two episodes that speak to their own shows – but also the differences and similarities between Picket Fences and The X-Files.

In some ways, Away in the Manger feels almost like an episode of The X-Files shot from a different perspective.

Agent Morrell, FBI…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: away in the manger, CBS, chris carter, crossover, david e. kelly, Fox, picket fences, red museum, Television, the x-files, x-files | 2 Comments »

The X-Files – Red Museum (Review)

Posted on August 14, 2014 by Darren

This August (and a little of September), we’re taking a trip back in time to review the second season of The X-Files. In November, we’ll be looking at the third season. And maybe more.

While Firewalker is a solid episode ill-served by its position in the schedule and its similarity to an early episode of the show, Red Museum is just a mess.

The production issues with Red Museum are infamous. It was intended as the first part of a crossover between The X-Files and Picket Fences, both airing on Friday nights. The idea was that fans could tune into The X-Files on Fox for the first part of the story, and then move over to CBS after the credits rolled to pick up the case on Picket Fences. It was an ambitious effort – too ambitious. Although showrunners Chris Carter and David E. Kelley agreed on the idea, CBS vetoed it. It resulted in two orphaned hours of television, Red Museum and Away in the Manger.

Well, not quite. The result is something of a malformed two-parter composed of two individual malformed episodes.

He likes to watch…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: away in the manger, beef, chris carter, conspiracy, crew-cut man, crossover, david e. kelley, Deep Throat, meat, red museum, small-town america, Television, the x-files, x-files | 9 Comments »

The X-Files – Firewalker (Review)

Posted on August 13, 2014 by Darren

This August (and a little of September), we’re taking a trip back in time to review the second season of The X-Files. In November, we’ll be looking at the third season. And maybe more.

Firewalker is a perfectly solid episode of The X-Files.

The problem is that Firewalker needs to be so much more than “solid.” It’s the first show of the season that has Mulder and Scully working together on an X-file. Nine episodes into the season, the show has finally put the two characters together and dropped them into a regular episodic adventure plot. Scully is back. There is no Cigarette-Smoking Man, no Skinner, no Krycek. The show had waited more than two months to get back to the familiar formula, so there was a palpable sense of anticipation.

Burn, baby, burn…

To be fair to Firewalker, there’s a lot to like here. It’s a nice paranoia thriller, one that could easily serve as a text book example of a stand-alone X-Files episode. As you might expect from a script by Howard Gordon, Firewalker is also a nice character study for Mulder. It has a phenomenal guest cast – featuring actors like Bradley Whitford, Leland Orser and Shawnee Smith. On paper, Firewalker is a great episode of The X-Files. Divorced from context, it holds up rather well.

Unfortunately, Firewalker can’t be divorced from context. The episode has quite a few glaring problems. It seems a little disappointing that the first episode after Gillian Anderson’s return to full-time work on the show is a character study of Mulder. The plot is just a little too archetypal, feeling like a retread of Ice from the first season. The episode tries to get back to business as usual without bother to unpack everything that has happened since The Erlenmeyer Flask.

Into darkness…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: body horror, David Nutter, firewalker, fungus, Glen Morgan, Howard Gordon, ice, James Wong, reproductive horror, spores, the x-files, x-files | 3 Comments »

X-Over: The X-Files & Steven Moffat’s Doctor Who

Posted on August 12, 2014 by Darren

It goes without saying that The X-Files was a massively influential television show. As early as its second season, the show had launched all manner of imitations and copycats, both inside and outside the Fox Network. It seems quite likely that Fox invested two-and-a-half million dollars in the failed Doctor Who relaunch of 1996 in the hopes of spinning off another cult/mainstream science-fiction hit like The X-Files. It was launched as a two-hour television movie, failing to earn the rating necessary to spin it off into a weekly series.

However, although the 1996 telemovie provides an obvious point of intersection between The X-Files and Doctor Who, the influence of The X-Files can perhaps be most keenly felt in Steven Moffat’s work on the relaunched television series. Moffat is credited as the producer who helped the show to “break” America during his second year as showrunner, and he did so in a number of ways. Perhaps the most interesting is that he leaned rather heavily on The X-Files as a point of cultural intersection.

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Filed under: Television, The X-Files | Tagged: a good man goes to war, amy, conspiracy, Darkness Falls, doctor who, Forest of the Dead, nixon, one breath, scully, silence, Silence in the Library, steven moffat, vashda nerada, watergate, x-files | 2 Comments »

Robin Williams

Posted on August 12, 2014 by Darren

Robin Williams passed away.

It took a moment to let that sink in, to accept that we would be talking about Robin Williams in the past tense. Although the news broke in the evening time in the United States, it was announced in the middle of the night in Irish and European time. Over here, most of us fell asleep in a world where Robin Williams was a perpetual and much-loved screen presence, only to wake up in a world where Robin Williams was gone. It is very strange and very difficult piece of information to process, and something very hard to wake up to.

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Filed under: Movies | Tagged: obituary, rip, robin williams | 2 Comments »

The X-Files – One Breath (Review)

Posted on August 12, 2014 by Darren

This August (and a little of September), we’re taking a trip back in time to review the second season of The X-Files. In November, we’ll be looking at the third season. And maybe more.

If there were ever any doubt that The X-Files is fundamentally about faith in the nineties, One Breath should put the matter to rest.

An astounding, moving, staggering and thoughtful piece of work, One Breath not only wraps up the arc that opened the second season, it also provides closure to the themes that writers Glen Morgan and James Wong had been seeding throughout this first stretch of the season. One Breath bookends the meditation on faith that began in Little Green Men and serves as a counterpoint to the paranoia of Blood and the nihilism of 3.

One Breath is a tremendous piece of work, the best episode of the season and one that deserves to be mentioned among the very best the show ever produced.

Grave stakes…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: alien abduction, david duchovny, gillian anderson, Glen Morgan, James Wong, mulder, one breath, rape revenge, scully, Television, the x-files, x-files | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Expendables 3

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Darren

There is something almost laudable about The Expendables as a movie franchise. Like science-fiction conventions do for other genre performers, The Expendables provides retirement planning and income for a bunch of performers who might otherwise have passed their sell-by date. It’s vaguely reassuring to know that sometimes life (and ass-kicking) begins at fifty, and The Expendables is endearingly sincere and upfront about this function – giving action stars who might seem over the hill one last go around.

That goodwill is stretched to breaking point with The Expendables 3. Nobody expects a particularly insightful or well-constructed script for a film like this, but the screenplay is a mess. Structurally speaking, The Expendables 3 feels like it is being held together by rubber bands – rubber bands that are being stretched to breaking point with the film’s two-hour runtime. There is a tighter and exciting movie to be found in The Expendables 3, but the movie awkwardly lumbers past earnest and into indulgent.

Going to town on this one..

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: action stars, antonia danderas, film, Mel Gibson, Movie, non-review review, retirement planning, review, the expendables, the expendables 2, the expendables 3, Wesley Snipes | 2 Comments »

The X-Files – 3 (Review)

Posted on August 11, 2014 by Darren

This August (and a little of September), we’re taking a trip back in time to review the second season of The X-Files. In November, we’ll be looking at the third season. And maybe more.

3 is the first absolute misfire from the second season of The X-Files.

It’s easy enough to account for the problems with 3. The production on the episode was a mess. It was the first episode produced without one of the show’s two lead characters. It existed to plug a hole in the schedule caused by factors outside the control of the production staff. Writers Glen Morgan and James Wong were working on both this and One Breath simultaneously. And it’s also a traditional monster story, which is something that The X-Files had struggled with and would struggle with again.

Vamping it up…

To be fair, 3 does what it says on the tin. It is the episode between Ascension and One Breath, a forty-five minute breather that fills a broadcast slot and allows the show to continue on while Gillian Anderson takes maternity leave. The fact that there was only one slot to fill without Anderson is a testament to both the production team’s organisational skill and Anderson’s work ethic. Really, all that 3 needs to do is exist.

Even with that in mind, 3 still feels like a disappointment. Given how Anderson’s pregnancy managed to spur the production team to create a compelling long-form story for the show, culminating in stories like Duane Barry and One Breath, it’s disappointing that her absence doesn’t inspire the same creativity. Seeing The X-Files without Scully should be the opportunity for a fascinating adventure or insightful character study; it could play with audience expectations or the show’s rigid format. Instead, the result is just a mess.

“All by myself…”

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: 3, abduction, classic monster, horror, Moral panic, mulder, scully, sex, the x-files, three, vampire subculture, vampirism, x-files | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Spider’s Trap

Posted on August 9, 2014 by Darren

Spider’s Trap is a rather heavy-handed film. There are points where this works to the movie’s advantage – the stark black-and-white cinematography lends itself to exaggeration and effect. There are also points where the movie feels a little overly-earnest and awkward as it fashions its own noir tale about second chances and long-planned revenge. Beautifully shot by director Alan Walsh, Spider’s Trap is often endearing and charming, if not quite consistently brilliant. There are a few notable missteps, but there is also a lot to like.

Things aren’t so black-and-white…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: alan walsh, black and white, film, Film noir, Ireland, irish film, Movie, noir, non-review review, review, simon delaney, Spider, spider's trap | Leave a comment »

The X-Files – Ascension (Review)

Posted on August 8, 2014 by Darren

This August (and a little of September), we’re taking a trip back in time to review the second season of The X-Files. In November, we’ll be looking at the third season. And maybe more.

Ascension is effectively a giant chase sequence and an epilogue to the first six episodes of the second season. While lacking the tight focus of Duane Barry, Ascension moves fast enough and provides enough plot momentum that it feels like a satisfactory conclusion. For an episode that was essentially written to deal with a cast member’s unexpected pregnancy, it’s a pretty fantastic piece of television.