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The X-Files – Underneath (Review)

Posted on December 22, 2015 by Darren

This December, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the ninth season of The X-Files.

Nothing like cancellation to get the vultures circling.

It is the nature of television that not every episode ends up exactly the way that the production team would like. Working on a tight deadline with a limited budget, compromises have to be made. Sometimes, there is not enough time to properly polish a script so that it makes sense. Other times, the special effects have to be rushed. Churning out twenty-odd episodes in a season demands a lot of the production team, and it seems impossible to maintain a perfect record across a full season.

Skull and bones..

Skull and bones…

The X-Files might have held itself to the highest production standards, but there are inevitable missteps along the way. Fearful Symmetry is about invisible zoo animals because there is no way that the show could be about visible zoo animals. Teso dos Bichos had difficulty wrangling its cats. The special effects work on Tunguska came so close to the wire that people in different parts of the country actually saw different cuts of the episode. Parts of Christmas Carol had to be reshot when the child actor proved unreliable in Emily.

These are the realities of television production. It is not always pretty, and the result is not always fantastic, but it gets done. Fans and commentators have a tendency to overlook these problems when they occur at the height of the show. They are less forgiving when they occur past the show’s prime.

Crosses to bear...

Crosses to bare…

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The X-Files – Audrey Pauley (Review)

Posted on December 21, 2015 by Darren

This December, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the ninth season of The X-Files.

One of the surprising aspects of the ninth season is just how strong the episodes centring on Doggett and Reyes are.

True, there are not necessarily too many “all-time classic” episodes to be found across the length and breadth of the ninth season; that is arguably true of every season since the sixth. The strongest episodes of the ninth season tend to be those focusing on the two new lead characters actually doing their jobs and navigating the weird world around them. 4-D, John Doe, Hellbound and Audrey Pauley rank among the very best that the ninth season has to offer. The biggest problem with the ninth season is the difficulty that the show has maintaining that level of quality.

Into the void...

Into the void…

The ninth season never manages any real consistency. It never commits to one vision of the show or the other. While the stronger episodes suggest that The X-Files might be ready to move on past Mulder and Scully to embrace Doggett and Reyes, the show always returns to insisting that Mulder is still the most important character on the show despite David Duchnovny’s reluctance to return. Nothing Important Happened Today I featured David Duchovny’s stunt butt before Gillian Anderson, Robert Patrick or Annabeth Gish. That is the show’s priority.

This becomes particularly troublesome in the second half of the season. Steven Maeda seems to have a great deal of luck in his ninth season writing assignment, tackling episodes that wind up taking on a larger symbolic importance. 4-D was the first episode to be both produced and broadcast after the events of 9/11, due to scheduling choices that pushed Hellbound later into the season. Although Nothing Important Happened Today I was broadcast nearly two months after the attacks, the production team were actually working on Dæmonicus when news broke.

"Woops. Sorry. Wrong wall."

“Woops. Sorry. Wrong wall.”

Audrey Pauley winds up being the first episode to be produced and broadcast after the cancellation of The X-Files had been announced. The public had been informed of the cancellation between the broadcast of John Doe and Hellbound. The production team had found out while working on Scary Monsters. Due to scheduling choices, Scary Monsters had been pushed back later into the season and Audrey Pauley was aired first. Although it is quite likely Maeda was working on Audrey Pauley long before the cancellation, it still echoes through the work.

Audrey Pauley plays into some of Maeda’s core themes, suggesting alternate and pocket realities that navigate the void between life and death. As with 4-D, Audrey Pauley is very much a post-9/11 episode of The X-Files. However, it is also very much a post-cancellation episode of The X-Files.

Now, where have I seen this before?

Now, where have I seen this before?

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The X-Files – Providence (Review)

Posted on December 18, 2015 by Darren

This December, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the ninth season of The X-Files.

It is frequently argued that 9/11 killed The X-Files.

There are two sides to this argument. The most defensible side suggests that audiences simply lost all appetite for conspiracy and paranoia when confronted with an atrocity on that scale; that viewers wanted to be comforted and reassured about authority in the wake of the attacks. This argument is perhaps supported by the significant drop in viewers between Existence and Nothing Important Happened Today I, suggesting that the audience simply wasn’t interested in finding out what the ninth season had to offer – regardless of quality.

Oh your gods...

Oh your gods…

The other side of the argument suggests that the production team themselves were ill-equipped to deal with post-9/11 reality. The X-Files was a show rooted in the cultural context of the nineties, and had just been asked to adjust to a seismic shift. The world had changed dramatically over the course of a few hours on a morning in Autumn. The eighth season had seen the show drift away from government conspiracies and towards a more conventional alien invasion narrative, one that could play as a reactionary fantasy of the War on Terror.

The ninth season aired in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. The season was actually in production when the attacks took place, with the team halting work on Dæmonicus as the reports came in. While the ninth season does not necessarily have a coherent and rational response to those events, it is clear that the production team want to say something. Much of the ninth season mythology seems to struggle with what it wants to say and how best to say it.

Fire and brimstone...

Fire and brimstone…

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The X-Files – Provenance (Review)

Posted on December 17, 2015 by Darren

This December, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the ninth season of The X-Files.

Provenance and Providence are a landmark moment for The X-Files. They represent the last mid-season two-parter.

The mid-season two-parter has been an institution since the early second season, when external factors forced the production team to improvise around Gillian Anderson’s pregnancy. It was decided that the character of Scully would marginalised and written out so as to avoid dealing with the pregnancy, and the centre-piece of that plan was an epic two-parter that would air during in October 1994. Duane Barry and Ascension were such a big hit that the production team opted to do a second mid-season two-parter in February 1995, with Colony and End Game.

The Truth will not be buried...

The Truth will not be buried…

The show never looked back. Those episodes quickly codified the mythology, becoming a highlights in the season schedule. The two-parters typically aired during Sweeps and occasionally managed to garner press and media attention. They featured bigger budgets and impressive scale, with many of those two-parters standing out as prime examples of The X-Files as “event” television. The submarine in the ice in End Game, the leap to the train in Nisei, the mid-air alien abduction in Max. These were blockbuster moments.

Provenance and Providence would mark the end of this rich tradition. Sadly, they do not embody the finest attributes of the form.

Burnt notice.

Burnt notice.

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Non-Review Review: Star Wars – Episode VII: The Force Awakens

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Darren

Star Wars: Episode VII – The Force Awakens is the Star Wars film you’re looking for. Mostly.

In many respects, Star Wars was the film the helped to launch the modern “blockbuster” model of cinema, and a large part of The Force Awakens is the reassurance that not too much has changed in the intervening years. Sure, there are a few script tweaks to reflect more modern tastes for the post-Dark Knight era, but the basic storytelling engine is still the same underneath. If The Force Awakens is a hybrid, it is a hybrid fashioned from the parts of the three original Star Wars films and just a dash of something more twenty-first century.

The Force is strong with this one...

The Force is strong with this one…

After the issues with the prequels, it is reassuring to know that the engine still runs. The franchise’s history as one of the forerunners of blockbuster cinema makes it perfectly suited to JJ Abrams’ nostalgic stylings. Abrams gets a lot of flack for his evocation of seventies and eighties blockbuster cinema, but he does have a fundamental understanding of how (and why) it works. Ever the keen student of Spielberg and vintage Hollywood blockbusters, director JJ Abrams is able to effortlessly blend that classic aesthetic with a contemporary sensibilities.

There are moments when The Force Awakens threatens to suffocate under the weight of what came before, but it largely succeeds on its own terms as a doorway to something new and exciting.

Handover from one generation to the next...

Handover from one generation to the next…

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The X-Files – Hellbound (Review)

Posted on December 16, 2015 by Darren

This December, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the ninth season of The X-Files.

Your hand travelled
the Aztec trail
down my breast.
The sun popped out like the egg
of a platypus
and aspens pattered
their leafy Ur-language.
All this has happened before.

The jellied landscape
was furrowed with happiness.
You worshipped me
like the goddess of warm rain.

But in each corner of our eyes
stood one of Maxwell’s demons
loosening the molecules
of rise and fall
back and forth.

And in and out, round and about,
in and out,
through the cracked lens of the eye
unendingly,
surface behind glass
entropy mounted
in the random and senseless universe.

All this has happened before.
All this will happen again.

– Miroslav Holub, Lovers in August

Uncomfortable in his skin...

Uncomfortable in his skin…

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Non-Review Review: The Heart of the Sea

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Darren

The Heart of the Sea is well-made, and full of all manner of interesting dynamics and clever set-ups. Pitting man against nature is always a sure recipe for drama, and stranding a bunch of people in the middle of the ocean adds all sorts of unique tensions. Survival drama is powerful, resonating with key themes about man’s endurance and limitations. Putting a bunch of talented actors in boat together under the eye of a talented director will get you half-way to a good film.

The problem with The Heart of the Sea is that it lacks focus. It is a film that is never entire sure what it is about, or how it wants to be about it. Is it an environmentalist fable about mankind’s hubris and arrogance? Is it the tale of the lengths to which a man will do to survive? Is it a tale of two competing egos and the live entrusted to their care? Is it a secret history of Moby Dick, the great American novel? The answer is that The Heart of the Sea tries to be all of these things, but never quite consistently and never entirely thoroughly.

Good Whale Hunting. (Courtesy of Niall Murphy.)

Good Whale Hunting.
(Courtesy of Niall Murphy.)

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The X-Files – John Doe (Review)

Posted on December 15, 2015 by Darren

This December, we’re taking a trip back in time to review the ninth season of The X-Files.

A man without a past on a show without a future.

John Doe opens with John Doggett on the floor of a dusty warehouse, an addict stealing his shoes. Doggett chases the thief out of the warehouse, stunned to realise that he is actually in Mexico. His pursuit of the addict culminates in his arrest by local law enforcement, a couple of cops demanding to see his identification papers. Doggett pats himself down looking for something, but the horror of his situation seems to dawn on him. Asked for his name, all Doggett can offer is an awkward “I don’t know.” His past has been stolen from him.

"Woah, boy. Computer-generated film grain. I'm either in Mexico or a CSI flashback."

“Woah, boy. Computer-generated film grain. I’m either in Mexico or a CSI flashback.”

Four days after the initial broadcast of John Doe, it was announced that there would be no tenth season of The X-Files. Fox and Chris Carter were retiring the show after a phenomenal nine-season run. Of course, production had wrapped on John Doe long before the decision had been made; the crew were working on Scary Monsters when news filtered down about the looming end of the show. However, there was something quite appropriate about the timing of all this. John Doggett lost his past in the same week that The X-Files lost its future.

There is almost a weird poetry in that.

Breaking Decent.

Breaking Decent.

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Non-Review Review: Daddy’s Home

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Darren

Daddy’s Home is fairly mediocre comedy, despite the promise. In some respects, the film recalls very successful Will Ferrell vehicles. The premise of the film is fairly solid, with father and step-father competing with one another for the love of their children; it loosely resembles a middle-aged version of the awkward immaturity that made Step-Brothers such fun. The film features the unlikely comedic team of Will Ferrell and Mark Wahlberg, two actors who had played very well off one another in The Other Guys.

The problem is simply one of calibration. Daddy’s Home struggles to pitch itself at the right level, never finding the right balance between sincere and cynical. It seems trite to complain that the protagonists of a modern comedy are unlikable or unsympathetic, but Daddy’s Home never feels like it finds an emotional core. This is not a fatal flaw of itself, but it becomes a problem when Daddy’s Home cannot supply a steady stream of laughs.

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To 60 Seconds and Not Beyond: Closing Date Approaches for “Jameson Done in 60 Seconds” Competition

Posted on December 14, 2015 by Darren

To take part in this year’s Jameson Done in 60 Seconds competition and be in with a chance of winning an Empire Award and attending the star-studded Jameson Empire Awards in March 2016,  simply choose a movie and distil it down to 60 seconds of cinematic essentials, just like putting all the best bits in a movie trailer. Then grab some mates, blag a camera (or smartphone) and upload your one minute masterpiece to www.jamesonempirediss.com before January 14th 2016.

 One Irish entry will be chosen by an expert panel of judges including six-time Oscar nominated director Jim Sheridan, actor and author Eoin Macken, who just finished filming the Hollywood blockbuster Resident Evil: The Final Chapter along with actor Kevin Ryan, who stars in the new ABC series Guilt which is due for release in 2016, to represent Ireland at the Global Jameson Done in 60 Seconds final in London.

Last year’s Jameson Done in 60 Seconds winner Oliver Jones impressed the judges with his hilariously low-fi take on Ghostbusters, he collected his award live on stage at the Jameson Empire Awards.

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