the m0vie blog

The X-Files – Season 1 (Review)

Posted on November 1, 2013 by Darren

Trying to appraise the first season of any show is quite different from judging any other season. While all subsequent seasons have some measure of continuity to build off, some experience to guide the cast and crew, some familiarity to play into or away from, the first season literally starts with nothing. Even when there’s a sizeable gap between the production of the pilot and the start of work on the series proper (with over a year between the filming of The Pilot and Deep Throat), there’s still a sense we’re watching the production team settle into their roles.

All of this is a round-about way of saying that the first season of The X-Files is not a great season of television, judged on its own merits. It’s certainly not the strongest season of the show, which would go from strength-to-strength over the next three years, while also having an ambitious (if not entirely successful) fifth season. The first season of The X-Files is probably the weakest of the first five years of the show, but to express it in those terms is to miss the point.

The first season does a pretty great job laying the ground rules for the franchise, and offers a pretty solid indication of the talent involved in the show, if they can figure out what they want to do. (With quite a few episodes serving as examples of what the show doesn’t want to do.)

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, Dana Scully, Deep Throat, Erlenmeyer Flask, Fallen Angel, mulder, star trek: the next generation, The Smoking Man, Tooms, United States, X-File | 6 Comments »

Doctor Who: Midnight (Review)

Posted on November 1, 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.

Midnight originally aired in 2008.

And you be careful, all right?

Nah. Taking a big space truck with a bunch of strangers across a diamond planet called Midnight? What could possibly go wrong?

– Donna and the Doctor tempt fate

Midnight was the fiftieth episode of the revived Doctor Who to enter production. It had been intended to air as the fiftieth episode of the new series, but plotting similarities between Forest of the Dead and Turn Left forced Davies to shift the broadcast order of the episodes. As a result, we end up with the longest consecutive streak of Davies-written episodes in the history the show, stretching from Midnight through to The End of Time, Part II. In essence, although it’s not really intended as part of the over all arc, Davies’ swan song begins here.

And it’s the best episode that Davies has ever written. It might be the best episode of the fourth season. It might even compete for the best episode of show produced by Davies.

So it’s pretty great.

The long dark midnight of the soul…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: arts, bbc, Davies, doctor, DoctorWho, End of Time, fiction, Jethro, Midnight, Midnight (Doctor Who), Monsters Are Due on Maple Street, Online Writing, Planet of the Ood, rose, science fiction, steven moffat, twilight zone | 4 Comments »

The X-Files – The Erlenmeyer Flask (Review)

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Darren

When you think about it, The X-Files conspiracy mythology is just a fancy way of dressing up generational “daddy issues.” Both Mulder and Scully have problems with their fathers, and it plays into the show’s wider themes. The X-Files is, appropriately enough, a show that helps define what is known as “Generation X”, the generation born following the post war baby boom, as the afterglow from America’s ascent to global superpower began to wear off. Existing in the wake of the Cold War, in a unipolar world, The X-Files was a vehicle for introspection.

One of the recurring themes of the show, and one that has come up quite a bit in the first season, is the weight of history bearing down on the current generation. Living in the shadow of Watergate, dealing with the revelation of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiments, coping the Vietnam and other skeletons, it’s little wonder that Generation X seemed completely disillusioned with their elders. Jamie Notter argued that “unlike their parents who challenged leaders with an intent to replace them, Generation Xers tend to ignore leaders.”

Christine Henseler would go further, suggesting that there’s something close to righteous anger in the attitude that Generation X holds to its parents, holding “a world view” that “is based on change, on the need to combat corruption, dictatorships, abuse, AIDS.” The Erlenmeyer Flask seems the perfect place to end this season then, pushing all this uncertainty to the fore and killing the series’ much-loved father figure.

Bodies of proof…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Carter, chris carter, Dana Scully, Deep Throat, Erlenmeyer Flask, Lego, Lego minifigure, literature, mulder, Mulder & Scully, Tuskegee syphilis experiment, United States, Urban legend, X-File | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: Forest of the Dead (Review)

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Darren

Forest of the Dead originally aired in 2008.

Everybody knows that everybody dies. But not every day. Not today. Some days are special. Some days are so, so blessed. Some days, nobody dies at all. Now and then, every once in a very long while, every day in a million days, when the wind stands fair, and the Doctor comes to call, everybody lives.

– River brings Moffat’s contributions to the Davies era a full circle

There’s actually quite a lot to like about Forest of the Dead. Like Silence in the Library, it doesn’t really push Moffat’s work on Doctor Who that much further. A lot of its big ideas can be found in Moffat’s earlier Doctor Who work. Still, it is quite clever and quite well-written, and a pretty well-constructed episode. This is, after all, the last episode of the Davies era that is not credited to Davies himself. Given it’s written by the showrunner elect, that celebratory feel is justified.

At the same time, however, there are some very uncomfortable gender roles at work in Forest of the Dead for female characters like Donna or River. Moffat would come under a lot of fire during his tenure producing Doctor Who for the way that he wrote female characters, but I’d actually argue that the problems with Forest of the Dead are more in keeping with wider Davies-era trends towards the way that female characters are written.

It just clicked…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: arts, bbc, Davies, doctor, DoctorWho, Donna, Donna Noble, fiction, Forest, Forest of the Dead, Moffat, Online Writing, River Song, River Song (Doctor Who), rose tyler, science fiction, steven moffat, tardis | Leave a comment »

The X-Files – Roland (Review)

Posted on October 31, 2013 by Darren

Roland is an episode that works much better than it really should. On the surface, it has many of the same problems as Born Again, to the point where it seems like “angry spirits” take up a disproportionate amount of Mulder and Scully’s case load. The filming and broadcast of Born Again and Roland in rapid succession probably points to the kind of pressure that Carter and his crew were under towards the end of the first year – both episodes play a lot better spaced out, and having the room to shuffle the production order on the two stories probably would have helped them seem less derivative.

And yet, Roland is elevated by a superb guest performance. Željko Ivanek isn’t the first stellar guest star that we’ve seen this year. Doug Hutchinson was perfectly cast as Tooms, and Brad Dourif did a marvellous job as Luther Lee Boggs. However, Ivanek might be the first guest star on The X-Files to elevate an otherwise bland episode through the sheer force of his performance.

It doesn’t suck or blow…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Arthur Grable, born again, Brad Dourif, cnn, games, Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, Grable, Mach number, Roland, Roland Martin, Shadows, Steve Spurrier, Super Bowl, Tooms, video games, X-File, Željko Ivanek | 2 Comments »

Non-Review Review: Gravity

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Darren

Gravity is a phenomenal piece of filmmaking, and one of the highlights of the year. It’s a bold and visually stunning survival movie, built around the most simple of premises with incredible craftsmanship. It’s a lean and well-constructed thriller that manages to effortlessly capture the impossible isolation experienced by those flying in the void. Never over-wrought or over-strained, Gravity is an absolutely beautiful accomplishment for all involved.

Floating in a most peculiar way…

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Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: 3d film, Alfonso Cuarón, film, Filmmaking, george clooney, Gravitation, Gravity, hollywood, Houston, Physics, Ryan, sandra bullock, Sound design, Space station | 12 Comments »

Doctor Who: Silence in the Library (Review)

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Darren

Silence in the Library originally aired in 2008.

There’s the real world, and there’s the world of nightmares. That’s right, isn’t it? You understand that?

Yes, I know, Doctor Moon.

What I want you to remember is this, and I know it’s hard. The real world is a lie, and your nightmares are real.

– Cal and Doctor Moon get to the root of what makes Moffat scripts terrifying

Ah, Silence in the Library. The Steven Moffat story that isn’t, that doesn’t. The first Steven Moffat script that isn’t the strongest story in its season by a clear margin; the first Steven Moffat adventure that didn’t claim the Hugo for Doctor Who. The biggest problem with Silence in the Library and Forest of the Dead is that they can’t quite measure to The Empty Child, The Doctor Dances, The Girl in the Fireplace or Blink. That’s hardly an unforgivable sin, and there’s no shame in not being quite as good an episode of Doctor Who as Midnight was.

I’m quite fond of the two-parter, even though I’ll concede that it has its problems. The most obvious of which is the fact that – four years into the revival – the audience has had a chance to come to appreciate “Moffat-isms”, with many viewers able to recognise the writer’s preferred genre tricks and tropes. Silence in the Library is far from the most original script of the season, but it’s well written and well executed.

It’s just a little too familiar.

Going by the book on this one…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: arts, bbc, doctor, Doctor Dances, DoctorWho, Empty Child, Library, Moffat, River Song, russell t. davies, science fiction, Silence in the Library, steven moffat | Leave a comment »

The X-Files – Born Again (Review)

Posted on October 30, 2013 by Darren

Born Again is a very bland episode of The X-Files that really suffers from being broadcast this late in the season. Indeed, the first season of The X-Files seems almost obsessed with life after death and reincarnation – we’ve already had episodes like Shadows, Lazarus and even Young at Heart. We’re three episodes from the end of the season, and we’ll still find room for one more “vengeance from beyond the grave!” story before we close up shop. Born Again isn’t bad so much as it’s just bland.

I don’t hate Born Again. In fact, it’s the episode that I remember least from this first season – the only evidence I had that I had seen the episode before came from a vague creeping feeling of familiarity while I was watching it. Even now, as I sit down with my notes to type a review, I’m not sure I can tell you that much about it.

It’s only a paper giraffe…

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Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: american, arts, born again, Brian Markinson, chris carter, Erlenmeyer Flask, Ghost in the machine, Howard Gordon, Maggie Wheeler, Screenwriting, Truth is Out There, Works, World Literature, Writers Resources, X-File | 3 Comments »

Subtitle European Film Festival, Kilkenny, 25th November – 1st December 2013

Posted on October 29, 2013 by Darren

I just got this press release about the upcoming SUBTITLE European film festival being held in Kilkenny towards the end of November. I’m always a fan of European cinema, and nothing beats the ethereal atmosphere of a film festival, so I thought I’d pass it on. You can find more details about the festival and their line-up on their website here. I particularly recommend Headhunters and A Hijacking if you can get to see them.

The press release is below.