September | 2014 | the m0vie blog

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Meridian (Review)

Posted on September 10, 2014 by Darren

The September and October, we’re taking a look at the jam-packed 1994 to 1995 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily for the latest review.

Meridian is, to be frank, an absolutely abominable episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. As a series, Deep Space Nine never really had a concentrated run of bad episodes, like the first and second seasons of Star Trek: The Next Generation or the second season of Star Trek: Enterprise or the third season of the original Star Trek. The first two seasons of Deep Space Nine might not be spectacular, but they are competently produced television – while there are a few scattered stinkers to be found, the bulk of the show comprises of mediocre and solid stories.

Instead, Deep Space Nine tended to pepper its weakest episodes throughout its run, perhaps a firm reminder that the show was never an entirely serialised experience. This wasn’t one story pushing forward, despite the presence of arcs and character development; Deep Space Nine was still prone to the pratfalls of episodic television. In this case, the pratfall was the necessity of churning out filler on a tight schedule and hoping to meet a deadline while pumping out two dozen episodes a year.

So we get unforgivably shoddy episodes like The Emperor’s New Cloak or Profit and Loss or Let He Who Is Without Sin mixed in with Deep Space Nine at the height of its form. The third season of Deep Space Nine lacks the highs of the later seasons, but that doesn’t mean it lacks the lows. Meridian stands out as the weakest episode of the season, and a serious competitor for one of the worst episodes of the show.

It appears that the toxic smell of the script is suffocating Terry Farrell…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: brigadoon, Dax, deep space nine, ds9, hilary bader, hilary j. bader, Kira, meridian, Quark, review, sexism, star trek, star trek: deep space nine | 8 Comments »

Non-Review Review: A Most Wanted Man

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Darren

For better or worse, A Most Wanted Man is going to be overshadowed by the passing of its lead actor. Philip Seymour Hoffman was a giant, a performer with a wonderful gift for bringing flawed and real characters to life, and A Most Wanted Man serves as his last leading role in a major motion picture. It is impossible to talk about A Most Wanted Man without talking about Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance, and that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

It is a great performance, one that reminds the audience of why they loved Hoffman in the first place – Günther Bachmann is the sort of flawed human being that Hoffman played so well, given a great deal of depth by the late actor.

What’s on the table?

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 9/11, a most wanted man, espionage, film, germany, John le Carré, Movie, non-review review, philip seymour hoffman, rachel mcadams, review, Robin Wright, thriller, willem dafoe | Leave a comment »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Civil Defense (Review)

Posted on September 9, 2014 by Darren

This September and October, we’re taking a look at the jam-packed 1994 to 1995 season of Star Trek, including Star Trek: Deep Space Nine and Star Trek: Voyager. Check back daily for the latest review.

Civil Defense is an episode that really worked a lot better than it should have. The third season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine hit a bit of a stumbling block in the early part of the third season. Indeed, Second Skin had been shot from what was pretty much Robert Hewitt Wolfe’s first draft of a teleplay. The Abandoned felt like a good premise pushed in front of the camera too early. Civil Defense was similarly rushed into production, with very little turn around from the production staff.

However, despite these production concerns, Civil Defense turns out to be an enjoyable pulpy adventure. The production team wouldn’t royally screw up until the next episode. The biggest problem with the script is that it feels like we’re seeing it far too late in the show’s run. Civil Defense is a fun third season episode, but it would have been a spectacular first season adventure.

“Free dissident suppression system with every purchase over twelve bars!”

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: cardassians, civil defense, deep space nine, ds9, Elim Garak, Garak, gul dukat, Nana Visitor, review, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, star trek: deep space nine, Television, terok nor | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – The Abandoned (Review)

Posted on September 8, 2014 by Darren

The Abandoned is a problematic episode.

It’s brave and provocative and challenging, but it’s also incredibly grim and cynical. In fact, it is probably the most relentlessly pessimistic episode of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine‘s third season. And, given the episodes surround it, that is quite an accomplishment. Deep Space Nine has subverted classic Star Trek storytelling before. The Maquis was really a watershed moment for the series, suggesting that paradise itself might be unsustainable – attacking Roddenberry’s utopia rather brutally.

However, The Abandoned pushes things even further. There’s a social and racial subtext to this episode that grounds it in the racial politics of Los Angeles in the mid-nineties. The story of a young angry drug-addicted killer can’t help but feel associated with the increased profile of Los Angeles’ gangland in the early-to-mid-nineties. Casting the episode’s young Jem’Hadar soldier using African American actors invites this comparison, something that director Avery Brooks himself has conceded.

The racial politics of The Abandoned are decidedly uncomfortable, but they are clearly meant to be. Still, there’s something rather cynical and pessimistic about the episode’s conclusion that this young boy cannot be saved from a life of brutality and violence.

A Jem?

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: deep space nine, Dominion, ds9, gangs, Jem'Hadar, los angeles, nineties, Odo, race, review, serialisation, Sisko, Television, the abandoned | 6 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Wizard of Oz (IMAX, 3D)

Posted on September 7, 2014 by Darren

“For nearly forty years this story has given faithful service to the Young in Heart,” an introductory title card advises the audience, “and Time has been powerless to put its kindly philosophy out of fashion.” Although the opening of The Wizard of Oz makes reference to the classic series of children’s stories written by Frank L. Baum, the text is just as applicable to the film itself. It has been seventy-five years, but The Wizard of Oz still has the power to warm even the most jaded and cynical of hearts.

Dorothy is modelling our snazzy red slippers. Order now to avoid disappointment…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: dorothy, film, Kansas, Movie, non-review review, oz, review, the wizard of oz | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: Robot of Sherwood (Review)

Posted on September 6, 2014 by Darren

Shortly, I shall be the most powerful man in the realm. King in all but name, for Nottingham is not enough.

It isn’t?

After this, Derby.

Right.

Then Lincoln. And after Lincoln…

Worksop?

The world!

– the Sheriff outlines his plot to Clara

Robot of Sherwood is a functional piece of television, with a wonderful closing scene capping a very light forty-five minutes. Mark Gatiss is a writer who tends to trade on nostalgia, and who clearly holds a great deal of affection for the past. As such, Robot of Sherwood provides a fairly effective and straightforward counterpoint to the heavy moral questions of Deep Breath and Into the Dalek. Is the Doctor a hero? It doesn’t matter, because his story is that of a hero.

There is a sense that perhaps Gatiss is being a little bit too glib here, to the point where Robot of Sherwood almost plays defensively – a justification of the writer’s tendency to rose-tinted nostalgia and a rejection of critical approaches towards history or story. Nevertheless, Robot of Sherwood does pretty much what it sets out to do. It provides Peter Capaldi with a suitably light script and a chance to flex his comedic muscles, while providing a suitably fairy-tale-ish pseudo-historical.

Legendary outlaw…

This season is introducing a new lead actor, a risky proposition for any show. As a result, the first half of the season tends to play it rather safe. Robot of Sherwood is the only episode in the first half of the season not to credit Steven Moffat as writer or co-writer; however, it is still written by an established Doctor Who veteran. After all, Mark Gatiss wrote The Unquiet Dead, the first episode of the relaunched series not written by Russell T. Davies. He also wrote Victory of the Daleks, the first story of the Moffat era not written by Moffat himself.

Indeed, the season returns to the classic “home”/“future”/“historical” opening triptych structure that defined the Davies era; it is the first time that this structure has been seen since Matt Smith’s opening season. (For Davies, “home” was twenty-first century London; for Moffat, it is the Paternoster Gang.) Robot of Sherwood is the show’s first proper “celebrity historical” since Vincent and the Doctor in that same opening season. “Safe” is very much the name of the game for this stretch of the season. Robot of Sherwood is very safe.

“You’ll ruin the paint work!”

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: criticism, deconstruction, doctor who, fairy tales, Mark Gatiss, myths, nostalgia, peter capaldi, review, robin hood, steven moffat | 4 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Guest

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Darren

The Guest is a pulpy delight. It’s a glorious throwback to classic seventies horror, with writer Simon Barrett and director Adam Wingart perfectly channeling the mood and feel of classic seventies exploitation films. It’s affectionate and unapologetic. It is gleeful and grim. It is darkly hilarious and also brutally pulpy. The Guest is a film that knows exactly what it wants to be, and accomplishes that with great skill.

Seeing red…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: Adam Wingart, dan stevens, film, John Carpenter, lance reddick, Leland Orser, Movie, non-review review, review, Simon Barrett, the guest | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Second Skin (Review)

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Darren

Second Skin continues the identity and reality themes running through the third season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The Search revealed that the Dominion is led by shape-changing aliens who can impersonate anybody, after our heroes spend an episode in a virtual reality. House of Quark stemmed from lies Quark told about himself, only to discover that Klingon culture is not what it claims to be. Equilibrium revealed that Dax held secrets even from herself, having a whole other life. Second Skin confronts Kira with the idea that she may be everything she hates.

The theme will continue in the episodes ahead. The Abandoned is a rather cynical meditation on the nature-against-nurture debate. Civil Defense involves the Deep Space Nine crew discovering that the station itself is not as safe as they like to think. Meridian involves a subplot about Kira’s right to control her own body. Defiant is built around a crisis of identity for a doppelganger. Past Tense features Sisko stepping into the identity of a historical figure. And so it continues. Things are not what they appear to be; the truths we take for granted are not true.

Rewatching this first block of Deep Space Nine‘s third season, it’s amazing how cynical the show could be.

Face of the enemy…

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Filed under: Deep Space Nine | Tagged: bajorans, cardassians, deep space nine, ds9, identity, Kira, Kira Nerys, Philip K. Dick, philosophy, Robert Hewitt Wolfe, second skin, star trek, the next generation | Leave a comment »

The X-Files (Topps) Annual #1 – Hallow Eve (Review)

Posted on September 5, 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.

No matter how you cut it, the creative team of Stefan Petruscha and Charles Adlard were prolific. The duo only worked on The X-Files comics book for seventeen months between January 1995 and May 1996, but they put out a phenomenal amount of work. On top of sixteen issues of the monthly series, there were also two digests, a number of short stories and an annual. In most cases, some of this work would be outsourced to another creative team, but Petrucha and Adlard remain the creative team for Topps’ X-Files comic.

While this undoubtedly required a great deal of creative energy from Petrucha, churning out scripts on a regular basis, it is worth pausing to praise artist Charles Adlard. These days, for a variety of reasons, it seems that major comic book artists have difficulty producing twelve twenty-odd-page issues in a year. Not only was Adlard able to meet that objective, he was able to do that while drawing a large volume of supplementary material, including this feature-length annual.

All about Eve…

It’s remarkable how consistent it all is. One of the advantages of a tie-in comic book with a steady creative theme is that there’s a much clearer authorial voice. Although Chris Carter oversaw the production of The X-Files, the demand of weekly network television mean that some episodes got more attention than others, and that particular voices tend to shine through. Darin Morgan writes his own version of The X-Files, as do Glen Morgan and James Wong or Howard Gordon or Vince Gilligan. (This isn’t a bad thing, by the way.)

On a comic, with all the issues written by the same author and illustrated by the same artist, there is a bit more consistency. Even though Hallow Eve is a stand-alone one-shot story that exists quite separate to Petrucha and Adlard’s twelve-issue meta-arc, it fits quite comfortably with their themes and subtexts. It’s an episode about history and memory, and perception and reality.

Shocking…

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Filed under: Comics, The X-Files | Tagged: Charles Adlard, eve, faith, ghosts, history, memory, mitochondrial eve, mulder, rational, religion, scully, Stefan Petrucha, the x-files, Topps, x-files | 2 Comments »

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine – Fearful Symmetry by Olivia Woods (Review)

Posted on September 5, 2014 by Darren

Fearful Symmetry had a long and painful history. The novel was originally scheduled for release April 2007. This would have seen the novel published about a year after the release of the previous Star Trek: Deep Space Nine relaunch novel, Warpath. The plan had been for new author Leanna Morrow to write the novel. When that proved impossible, Olivia Wood stepped in to rescue the assignment. Fearful Symmetry was eventually published in June 2008, over a year behind the initial schedule.

It’s interesting to speculate how that delay affected the Deep Space Nine relaunch. The next novel in the series, The Soul Key, would be the last published before the print Star Trek universe realigned as part of the Typhon Pact and The Fall, very much “event” books that served to relaunch the fictional universe. It is interesting to speculate whether the year between Warpath and Fearful Symmetry contributed to the decision to discontinue that particular iteration of the Deep Space Nine relaunch.

Still, whatever the reason, Fearful Symmetry is more interesting than successful. It is a book written with a number of great ideas, but some very flawed execution. It adopts a very “comic book” approach towards the Star Trek universe – featuring high concepts and crossovers and character who have been exaggerated slightly and distorted so as to fit the general perception of them rather than any consistent internal characterisation.

Fearful Symmetry is a bold and ambitious piece of work, particularly from a first time novelist. Unfortunately, it doesn’t work quite as well as it needs to.