Darren

Non-Review Review: Finding Dory

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Darren

Finding Dory is a demonstration of everything that Pixar does well, a bright and colourful treat for kids that offers enough depth for adults.

Pixar have one of the strongest track records in animation, even acknowledging recent missteps like Cars 2 or The Good Dinosaur. At its best, the studio is transcendent, producing films that speak as keenly to parents as they do to children, building entire worlds from pixels that feel so textured and real that audiences do not need 3D to end up lost in them. Inside Out is the most recent demonstration of the studio’s prowess in that regard, a film that deserved to be in the conversation as one of the very best movies of 2016.

I think I see her!

Finding Dory is not quite at that level. The movie seems unlikely to be remembered as one of the studio’s finest efforts alongside Wall-E or Up. However, second tier Pixar is still fantastic. There is a solid argument to be made that Finding Dory is the film of the summer, a family-friendly treat that can appeal to whole audiences. Kids of all ages will react fondly to the colourful (and beautifully rendered) characters, while the movie also resonates on more profound levels for the more mature members of the family.

As with the best Pixar films, Finding Dory speaks to the idea of family and growing up. The film is held together by a beautiful metaphor about what it means to find a family, and about the idea of returning home as an emotional rather than a literal journey. It is a fascinating and powerful film, but also one with as much heart and energy as anything in the Pixar canon.

Something fishy is going on…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, finding nemo, non-review review, pixar, review | Leave a comment »

The X-Files – My Struggle II (Review)

Posted on July 12, 2016 by Darren

This June, we’re going to be taking a look at the current run of The X-Files, beginning with the IDW comic book revival and perhaps taking some detours along the way. Check back daily for the latest review.

“This is the end,” the opening credits tease.

This is not the end.

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, my struggle ii, the x-files | 6 Comments »

The X-Files: Season 11 (IDW) #6-8 – Endgames (Review)

Posted on July 11, 2016 by Darren

With Endgames, it all comes to an end.

The grand epic story that writer Joe Harris had built across thirty-five issues of The X-Files: Season 10 and The X-Files: Season 11 comes to a close with this three-part story. Given that the default length of a mythology-heavy story in Season 10 was five issues, Endgames cannot help but feel somewhat truncated. However, there has always been a sense that Season 11 is winding down rather than ratcheting up.

Alien nation.

In some ways, Endgames suffers from being overly ambitious. Harris reintroduced the faceless rebels into his mythology with My Name is Gibson and The X-Files Christmas Special 2015, but they feel like they crowd out what is otherwise a straightforward confrontation with Mulder and Scully squaring off against Gibson Praise. It is in some ways disappointing that all of Gibson’s plans build to a handful of trucks in the desert.

And, yet, in spite of that, there is something oddly charming about Endgames. The three-parter might be a compromised twist on the ending that Joe Harris originally envisaged for his massive epic, but it is still an ending.

Full circle.

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Filed under: Comics, The X-Files | Tagged: aliens, continuity, endgames, faceless rebels, Gibson praise, idw, joe harris, mulder, scully | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Ghostbusters (2016)

Posted on July 10, 2016 by Darren

It is very strange to think of Ghostbusters as a film.

For the past year or so, the word has existed as part of a storm ravaging the pop cultural landscape. It became the source of heightened controversy, its own front in the pop culture wars that had already consumed video gaming and the Hugos. To venture an opinion on the film was to wade into that storm, to chase the tornado and to find your opinion subject to all manner of criticism and second-guessing. If you were interested in the film, you were a raving feminist crushing the hopes and dreams of a generation. If you were sceptical, you were a misogynist.

Rocked and loaded.

With that in mind, it is strange to think of Ghostbusters as actually existing as a film that can actually be watched in a cinema. The film has been the source of so much discussion and debate – so much thought and energy – that it somehow feels “bigger” than two-hour long supernatural action comedy directed by Paul Feig and starring a great cast. Trying to separate the film from that larger discussion feels like a Herculean task of itself, one compounded by the fact that it is neither terrible nor brilliant.

Being sensational or being awful would make the matter a bit easier, because it would tie neatly into one of the two narratives swirling around the film’s production. Instead, it is merely very good. It is an enjoyable supernatural action comedy with a great cast that is always fun to watch, even if it isn’t perfect. In the end, it is just a film. A very good, very enjoyable, slightly flawed film.

Stream of thought…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: film, Ghostbusters, ghostbusters (2016), Movie, non-review review | 29 Comments »

The X-Files – Babylon (Review)

Posted on July 8, 2016 by Darren

There are two schools of thought on Babylon.

The first school of thought is that the episode is quintessentially X-Files. It is Chris Carter taking advantage of the flexibility of the show’s form to produce an episode of television that looks utterly unlike anything else on television. This is the series at its most creative and its most gonzo, the free-spirited free association that powered early Carter episodes like Syzygy, The Post-Modern Prometheus, Triangle, Fight Club, First Person Shooter and Improbable. It is crazy and “out there”, but… well, so is the truth.

Party on, Mulder.

The second school of thought is that the episode is spectacularly and recklessly ill-judged. Although undoubtedly well-intentioned, Chris Carter produces a script that is deeply problematic and even potentially inflammatory. Given that so much of the script hinges on the idea that thoughts have “mass” and that ideas can be dangerous, the resulting episode is definitely clumsy and borderline reckless in its exploration of a sensitive issue. This is just as problematic as “classic” episodes like Teso Dos Bichos, Teliko or Badlaa.

Both of these things can be true.

“… I just don’t think it’ll understand…”

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: babylon, chris carter, the x-files, x-files | 11 Comments »

The X-Files – Home Again (Review)

Posted on July 7, 2016 by Darren

If Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster demonstrates the strengths of this six-episode miniseries format, then Home Again makes a case for the weaknesses.

Home Again is not a bad episode of itself. However, it does suffer from two glaring weaknesses of the revival format. The most obvious is that the revival is only six episodes long, which means that everything is truncated and reduced. This was quite clear in My Struggle I, which was essentially a mythology two- or three-parter with all the non-exposition bits cut out. However, it is also clear with Home Again, which feels like two great episodes that have been combined to form one good episode.

“This one has a monster in it.”

Glen Morgan is also the weakest director of the four directors working on the revival miniseries. Morgan is a phenomenal writer, but he lacks the stylistic flourish of Chris Carter or the dynamism of James Wong. He does not tailor the script for Home Again to suit his directorial sensibilities in the way that Darin Morgan does with his scripts for Jose Chung’s “Doomsday Defense” or Somehow, Satan Got Behind Me. Morgan is a good director, but one of the most under-appreciated ingredients of The X-Files was its murderer’s row of great television directors.

As a result, Home Again is an episode that is much stronger on paper than it is on camera.

“Mulder and Scully, FBI.”

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Glen Morgan, home again, x-files | 6 Comments »

The X-Files – Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster (Review)

Posted on July 6, 2016 by Darren

We’ve been given another case, Mulder.

It has a monster in it.

Total eclipse of the heart.

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Darin Morgan, mulder and scully meet the were-monster, the x-files | 14 Comments »

Non-Review Review: The Legend of Tarzan

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Darren

The Legend of Tarzan is a dysfunctional film.

It is an interesting film in many ways, eschewing a lot of the conventional choices when it comes to adapting the Lord of the Jungle for the silver screen. There are a lot of reasons why this adaptation might want to steer clear of familiar trappings like the origin story or opt for an unconventional starting point, and the result is one of the most intriguing of the year’s big blockbusters. The Legend of Tarzan never follows the path of least resistance, and the resulting film is more fascinating for that.

“Anyone for tea?”

It is also a lot less satisfying. Tarzan is an archetypal character. Many of the character’s trappings linger in popular memory. Even people who have never seen a Tarzan film will recognise the character’s battle cry. The loincloth is just as iconic as Superman’s red underwear. There are certain expectations in a Tarzan adaptation. Defying many of those choices is a bold storytelling decision, but that decision creates an absence at the heart of the film. Director David Yates and star Alexander Skarsgård never manage to fill that void.

The result is a film that is fun to puzzle out, but not entirely engaging on its own terms. Characters repeatedly acknowledge “the Legend of Tarzan”, whether sketched on posters or memorialised in song. However, the film spends so much of its first half picking apart the legend that it struggles to put it back together at the climax.

Note: there is more colour in this frame than in the entire film.

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: David Yates, film, Movie, non-review review, review, tarzan, the legend of tarzan | 4 Comments »

The X-Files – Founder’s Mutation (Review)

Posted on July 5, 2016 by Darren

In technical and aesthetic terms, Founder’s Mutation is the most modern of the six episodes to air as part of the revival miniseries.

To be fair, the other episodes in the miniseries do embrace the twenty-first century in their own unique ways. My Struggle I and My Struggle II update the mythology for the new millennium. Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster deals with themes that resonate particularly strongly now that Mulder and Scully are in their middle age. Babylon is a sincere (if misguided) attempt to engage with the current political climate. However, those episodes are decidedly old-fashioned in how they choose to tell their stories.

Title drop.

There are little nods towards contemporary technology in the other five episodes. Mulder’s inability to work his phone is something of a running joke, whether in his failure to snap a picture of Guy Mann in Mulder and Scully Meet the Were-Monster or his inability to turn off his “find my phone” app in My Struggle II. Carter is justifiably proud of how My Struggle II incorporates cutting edge pseudo-science. However, none of those stories integrate new technology and new ideas as smoothly as Founder’s Mutation.

However, it isn’t just the use of technology that marks Founder’s Mutation out as the most modern of the six episodes. The episode’s storytelling and style are noticeably more contemporary than the episodes around it. Founder’s Mutation tells its story in a way that feels very much in step with the television landscape around it. More than the other five episodes in the miniseries, Founder’s Mutation feels like an episode of twenty-first century television.

Can you hear me at all?

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: case of the week, founder's mutation, James Wong, mytharc, Television, the x-files, twenty-first century, x-files | 6 Comments »

The X-Files – My Struggle I (Review)

Posted on July 4, 2016 by Darren

This is journey that began for me – I’m sorry if I get emotional – twenty-three years ago. Things just don’t last in culture, these days. They… culture gobbles them up and they go away. It’s… it’s rare when something sticks around. Thanks for being part of the journey. The idea is that this is not the end. This is maybe a new beginning. And maybe we’ll do more of these if we do a really good job.

– Chris Carter’s opening remarks at the first production meeting on My Struggle I