gillian anderson | the m0vie blog

The X-Files – Beyond the Sea (Review)

Posted on October 17, 2013 by Darren

Ah, Beyond the Sea. My favourite episode of the first season. Maybe my favourite episode of the first two seasons, although I’ll confess that my opinion is prone to change. I’m in good company. Darin Morgan points to it as his favourite episode. Chris Carter has (again and again) singled it out as the best episode of the show’s first season – a piece of television that works “on every level.”

It’s easy to point out all the exceptional stuff in Beyond the Sea. Gillian Anderson is phenomenal, as we’ve come to suspect from spending half a season with her. David Duchovny is quite happily relegated to a supporting role, willing to allow his co-star room to breathe. Brad Dourif is sensational. Glenn Morgan and James Wong’s script is phenomenal. David Nutter’s direction is absolutely top-notch.

However, what always struck me about Beyond the Sea was just how incredibly confident and casual it was. It was bold and clever and provocative, but it was also tight and controlled. It’s brilliant, but it never feels like this isn’t a level of craft the show can’t consistently hit.

We are the dead…

Continue reading →

Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Beyond the Sea, Brad Dourif, Captain (United States), chris carter, csi, CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, Dana Scully, Darin Morgan, David Nutter, Federal Bureau of Investigation, final destination, Fox Mulder, gillian anderson, Glen Morgan, James Wong, scully, silence of the lambs, X-File, x-files | 6 Comments »

The X-Files – Fallen Angel (Review)

Posted on October 14, 2013 by Darren

Fallen Angel is a remarkable episode. It’s really the point at which the show seems to say “huh, this conspiracy stuff is really exciting.” It’s also a complete reversal from the misfire that was Space, proving that there are people working on the show who can create monsters on a tiny special effects budget and create compelling secondary characters. Following Mulder’s investigation of a downed UFO – the eponymous “fallen angel” – the episode dives headlong into the murky world of cover-ups and secrets, kicking the show’s mythology arc into gear.

Shedding some light on the matter…

Continue reading →

Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: 20th Century Fox, angel, chris carter, Dana Scully, Fallen Angel, Fox Mulder, gillian anderson, Jerry Hardin, Lone Gunmen, mulder, The Smoking Man, United States, William B. Davis, X-File, x-files | Leave a comment »

The X-Files – Space (Review)

Posted on October 11, 2013 by Darren

And so we go from what is possibly the strongest episode of the first season to what is definitely the worst. Space is a colossal failure of an episode, with even writer and creator Chris Carter conceding that it was “one of our most unloved episodes.” However, none of these spectacular failures occur for any particularly interesting reason. It’s the wrong idea with the wrong script with the wrong director, and a result that can’t even claim to be “so bad it’s good” like so many of the series’ other lesser hours.

At best, it’s a cautionary tale, a firm establishment of what The X-Files isn’t. Like The Jersey Devil, it’s an indicator that maybe Chris Carter should have been focused more on show-running than writing. Even factoring in the quite decent pilot, Carter is hardly batting a thousand here. However, it also offers some small measure of proof that – despite show’s fixation on extraterrestrials and UFOs – The X-Files is not really a show about space.

… and the stars look very different, today…

Continue reading →

Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, Dana Scully, Ed Lauter, Fox Mulder, gillian anderson, Hubble Space Telescope, mulder, Mulder and Scully (song), NASA, scully, Space Shuttle, star trek: the next generation, Susanna Thompson, United States, X-File | 3 Comments »

The X-Files – Ice (Review)

Posted on October 10, 2013 by Darren

Now we’re talking. It’s been a tough couple of episodes, but The X-Files bounces back with a strong contender for the best episode of the first season. Like the last collaboration between Morgan and Wong, Ice is one gigantic homage to a classic horror film. (Well, two classic horror films.) Shadows took its cues from The Entity, while Ice draws heavily from both John Carpenter’s The Thing and Howard Hawk’s The Thing From Another World, both based on the John W. Campbell Jr. novella Who Goes There?

However, Ice works a lot better than Shadows. Part of that is down to the fact that Morgan and Wong seem genuinely enthused and engaged with their premise, rather than simply painting by numbers. Part of this is also down to the fact that this sort of horror and paranoia is more firmly in the show’s wheelhouse than the generic “protective avenging ghost” narrative from Shadows.

Ear, ear!

Continue reading →

Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: Alaska, Berlin Wall, Dana Scully, David Nutter, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fox Mulder, gillian anderson, Hodge, John W. Campbell, mulder, Shadows, Television, Thing, X-File | 2 Comments »

The X-Files – Conduit (Review)

Posted on October 4, 2013 by Darren

The X-Files is somewhat fascinating as a historical artifact, a prism through which the viewer might explore the United States in that gap of time between the end of the Cold War and the start of the War on Terror. The show serves as something of a travelogue through the American subconscious, a vehicle for the nation’s fear and anxieties. It might be quaint now to look back on the show’s depiction of mobile phones and the internet, but The X-Files offers a snapshot of an America just on the cusp of that technological revolution, when there were still dark shadows and corners of the continent to be probed and explored.

One of the more interesting aspects of The X-Files is the way that it deals with faith in the nineties. Scully’s attempts to reconcile her religious beliefs with a rational approach to the universe are surprisingly insightful and nuanced, but Mulder’s belief system also offers a vehicle to explore the form that faith might take. “I want to believe,” Mulder confesses at the end of Conduit, with the iconic poster turning the sentiment into a motto. It doesn’t matter that Mulder chooses to invest his faith in aliens or conspiracies, The X-Files is still an exploration of what faith meant in the nineties.

Why is Mulder so driven?

Continue reading →

Filed under: The X-Files | Tagged: chris carter, Christian Right, Cold War, Dana Scully, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Fox Mulder, gillian anderson, Gulf War, IDW Publishing, mulder, Mulder & Scully, scully, United States, world war ii, x-files | 3 Comments »

Hannibal – Fromage (Review)

Posted on August 19, 2013 by Darren

With Fromage, Hannibal walks a bit of a fine line. One of the obvious conflicts in the first half of the season was between the procedural “serial killer of the week” elements and the more intriguing character-driven parts of the show. I think that, past the half-way point of the first season, the show begins to balance those two aspects much better. However, Fromage can’t help but feel a little bit contrived. It relies a rather convenient overlap between Hannibal’s world and Will Graham’s investigation.

Still, it works quite well as a continuation of the themes hinted at in Sorbet, and takes advantage of the fact that the show has completely embraced its lead character’s darker side. If Entrée and Sorbet pushed Hannibal from the periphery of the story into the spotlight, then Fromage allows him to actively drive the story. It’s the show’s first serial-killer-heavy story that is driven more by Hannibal than by Graham.

Work and play…

Continue reading →

Filed under: Television | Tagged: Benjamin Raspail, Bryan Fuller, Fromage, gillian anderson, hannibal, hannibal lecter, Hugh Dancy, Mads Mikkelsen, NBC, Sorbet, thomas harris, Tobias, Vocal folds, will graham | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: Shelter

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Darren

Shelteris a horror with an intriguing original premise. However, it’s also packed with tonnes of other premises, some of which are remotely interesting, while others are quite mundane. It’s an uneven film, which actually works best when it paces itself more as a thriller or a mystery than an out-and-out horror, but there are weaker choices out there.

Psyche!

Continue reading →

Filed under: Non-Review Reviews | Tagged: arts, Dissociative identity disorder, film, gillian anderson, Horror film, Jonathan Rhys-Meyers, Julianne Moore, Movie, murder, non-review review, review, sam raimi, shelter, shelter (movie) | Leave a comment »

Non-Review Review: X-Files – I Want to Believe

Posted on September 3, 2009 by Darren

The title just about says it all. I want to believe in The X-Files. I want to believe in Mulder and Scully. I want to believe in Chris Carter. But I’m looking for proof. Proof that the franchise that held the entire world’s attention for a few minutes in the mid- to late-nineties still has some life in it. Proof that a ridiculous complicated and illogical and poorly written final few seasons on the air had not sucked the marrow entirely from the bones of a once unique pop cultural entity. So, what does the movie give me? Not concrete proof, but a little hint of faith. The film is not as bad as the final two years of the show. That’s the good news. The bad news is that it isn’t as good as the first five.