tony black | the m0vie blog

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 3, Episode 13 (“Antipas”)

Posted on February 8, 2021 by Darren

Last year, I was thrilled to spend a lot of time on The Time is Now discussing the second season of Millennium. Since the podcast has moved on to the third season, I have taken something of a step back as a guest. That said, I was flattered to get an invitation to discuss Antipas with guest host Tony Black.

Antipas is an interesting piece of television. It’s effectively a grabbag of the familiar horror movie tropes and clichés that writers Chris Carter and Frank Spotnitz love: it’s The Omen, Don’t Look Now, The Shining and a few others. It’s effectively a gigantic homage to the huge influences on Carter’s work with both Millennium and The X-Files, even if it doesn’t exactly cohere as a story in its own right.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: antipas, don't look now, lucy butler, millennium, podcast, the omen, the shining, the time is now, the x-files, tony black | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 2, Episode 20 (“A Room With No View”)

Posted on June 10, 2020 by Darren

I have been lucky enough to appear quite frequently on the second season of The Time is Now, discussing the second season of Millennium, which remains one of my favourite seasons of television ever. So I was flattered to get asked back to join Tony Black to discuss the second season’s big Lucy Butler episode, A Room With No View.

A Room With No View is an interesting episode in a number of ways. Most obviously, it forms part of an arc that nominally connects the three otherwise disjointed seasons of Millennium, focusing on demonic forces at work in the world. However, it is also an episode that feels like it belongs to the second season specifically. It is a tale about the banality of evil and the intimacy of apocalypse, which are themes that play across the season. The result is something of a strange hybrid, and an episode of television that feels very distinct.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: a room with no view, lucy butler, millennium, podcast, the time is now, tony black | Leave a comment »

180. Sorcerer – World Tour 2020, w/ The New Wave (#—)

Posted on May 2, 2020 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Tony Black, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This time, a special treat. William Friedkin’s Sorcerer. And we’re crossing over with The New Wave, as a bit of a teaser for their launch.

Four men drift idly around a deadend town in the heart of South America, when an unlikely opportunity strikes. A terrorist has caused a fire at an American oil well, and the company is offering a lavish payday to anybody who can help. The only catch is that to earn that money, these four men will have to drive extremely volatile nitroglycerine across some of the most treacherous terrain imaginable. Those who survive will have enough to escape the hell in which they’ve found themselves, and those who don’t won’t care.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: adventure, destiny, fatalism, podcast, remake, sorcerer, South America, the new wave, the wages of fear, tony black, William Friedkin | Leave a comment »

179. Le salaire de la peur (The Wages of Fear) – World Tour 2020 (#202)

Posted on April 25, 2020 by Darren

This time, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le salaire de la peur.

Four men drift idly around a deadend town in the heart of South America, when an unlikely opportunity strikes. A freak accident has caused a fire at an American oil well, and the company is offering a lavish payday to anybody who can help. The only catch is that to earn that money, these four men will have to drive extremely volatile nitroglycerine across some of the most treacherous terrain imaginable. Those who survive will have enough to escape the purgatory in which they’ve found themselves, and those who don’t won’t care.

At time of recording, it was ranked 202nd on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: dynomite, explosion, film, french film, hollywood, la salaire de la peur, Movie, nihilism, South America, the new wave, tony black, wages of fear | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 2, Episode 13 (“The Mikado”)

Posted on April 22, 2020 by Darren

I was delighted to get invited back on The Time is Now to discuss The Mikado with the inimitable Tony Black.

The Mikado is an interesting episode of the second season of Millennium. In some ways, it represents a conscious throwback to the “serial killer of the week” format that defined so much of the first season. In some ways, it’s the ultimate example of the “serial killer of the week” format, pitting Frank Black against a stand-in for the Zodiac. However, in other ways it feels very much in step with the second season as a whole. It’s a story about information and rebirth, two core themes of the season as a whole. Either way, it’s a highlight in a season full of highlights.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: millennium, podcast, the mikado, the time is now, tony black | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 5, Episode 20 (“The End”)

Posted on April 3, 2020 by Darren

It’s season finale time on The X-Cast, so it was a privilege to be invited back on to talk about the fifth season finale The End. And it was a delight to join Tony Black for that discussion.

The end of the fifth season was the end of an era for The X-Files. The series would light up the multiplex over the summer with The X-Files: Fight the Future, and would return to the airwaves later that year as a changed show, with the production team having moved from Vancouver to Los Angeles. It was a transition that fundamentally altered the core dynamics of the show, and remains highly contested to this day. The End would be the last episode of The X-Files to be produced in Vancouver until My Struggle I, and a large part of the episode is about bidding a fond farewell to the show’s extended family in that area.

Appropriately enough, it seems like this episode marks a similar turning point for The X-Cast. I was caught completely off-guard by it, so I’ll let you listen and year for yourself. You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: podcast, the cigarette-smoking man, the end, the x-cast, the x-files, tony black, Vancouver | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 5, Episode 8 (“Kitsunegari”)

Posted on January 11, 2020 by Darren

Last year, I was extremely privileged to get to discuss the wonderful Pusher with the sensational Tony Black on The X-Cast. For those who don’t know, Pusher is Tony’s favourite episode ever – and comfortably sits around the edge of my top ten. So no pressure.

As such, it was a delight to get to join Tony for Kitsunegari, the fifth season sequel to Pusher. Outside of the mythology, it was relatively rare for The X-Files to do direct sequels to earlier episodes – even popular ones. Kitsunegari is an entry in a very select club that includes Tooms and Orison. However, it is also an episode with which I’ve had a very complicated relationship. It often feels like a parody of a sequel to Pusher rather than an entirely earnest follow-up, and as such as always felt like it belongs to the fifth season’s broader preoccupations with monstrous progeny as a metaphor for the show’s unexpected evolution and direction. Of course, I’ve always worried that I read too much into it.

As ever, you can make up your own mind. You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: kitsunegari, podcast, pusher, Television, the x-cast, tony black, x-files | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The Time is Now – Season 2, Episode 10 (“Midnight of the Century”)

Posted on December 24, 2019 by Darren

It’s Christmas, so The Time is Now has a special treat lined up for you. It’s the night before Christmas, so it was the perfect opportunity to discuss Midnight of the Century with the wonderful Tony Black. It’s something of a companion piece to our discussion of The Curse of Frank Black at Halloween.

It’s strange to imagine Millennium producing a Christmas episode. It’s even stranger to realise that’s a pretty much perfect episode for the season, following Frank Black through his Christmas Eve as he tries to work through his own complicated feelings about the holidays. Then again, it probably shouldn’t be a surprise. After all, the second season was show run by Glen Morgan and James Wong who had written Christmas-themed episodes like Beyond the Sea on The X-Files and River of Stars on Space: Above and Beyond. It is a delight.

As ever, you can listen directly to the episode here, subscribe to the podcast here, or click the link below. Have a Merry Christmas!

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Filed under: Millennium, Podcasts! | Tagged: christmas, frank black, midnight of the century, millennium, podcast, tony black | Leave a comment »

New Podcast! The X-Cast – Season 5, Episode 1 (“Redux I”)

Posted on November 22, 2019 by Darren

The X-Cast just kicked off its season coverage, and I’m back with Tony Black to discuss the first part of the fifth season premiere Redux I.

Redux I was famously the second-most watched episode of The X-Files, behind Leonard Betts. It’s easy to see why. Not only was the episode following on from an edge-of-the-seat cliffhanger involving the supposed suicide of the male lead on one of the buzziest shows of the decade, but it was also the launch of the season that would lead into the feature film adaptation, The X-Files: Fight the Future. As such, it was a pretty daring move on the part of Chris Carter to devote so much of the premiere to purple prose monologues playing over Mulder walking down grey corridors.

I think this is a pretty fun and interesting discussion. Redux I is always an episode that I’ve have complicated and conflicted feelings about, and the podcast was a nice opportunity to work through some of those strange emotions. Anyway, I hope there’s something worthwhile in here.

You can listen to the episode here, or click the link below.

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Filed under: Podcasts!, The X-Files | Tagged: belief, chris carter, conspiracy, faith, mythology, oliver stone, redux, redux i, the x-cast, the x-files, tony black | Leave a comment »

155. The 250 Anniversary Special 2019

Posted on November 11, 2019 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users.

This week, to mark the podcast’s three-year anniversary and passing the one-hundred-and-fifty-episode threshold, we decided to bring back as many of the guests from the third year as possible. So, joining Andrew and Darren on this podcast are:

Andy Hazell, who recorded Twin Peaks: The Return and Mary and Max
Tony Black, who recorded Avengers: Endgame
Carl Sweeney, who recorded Double Indemnity
Brian Lloyd, who recorded Twin Peaks: The Return
Alex Towers, who recorded Room, The Matrix and Fight Club
Doctor Bernice Murphy, who recorded The Exorcist and Exorcist II: The Heretic
Jess Dunne, who recorded Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation
Luke Dunne, who recorded Bohemian Rhapsody, Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation and Baby Geniuses
Phil Bagnall, who recorded L.A. Confidential, The Avengers, Three Colours: Red, The Lion King, Once Upon a Time… in Hollywood and Exorcist II: The Heretic
Richard Drumm, who recorded Twin Peaks: The Return
Niall Glynn, who recorded Twin Peaks: The Return
Chris Lavery, who recorded Sanjuro
Jay Coyle, who recorded Twin Peaks: The Return and Capernaum
Ronan Doyle, who recorded Capernaum
Grace Duffy, who recorded Fifty Shades of Grey, Star Wars, Spice World, Rush and The Matrix
Babu Patel, who recorded Race 3, Andhadhun, Escape Plan 2: Hades and Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels
Doctor Giovanna Rampazzo, who recorded Race 3, Andhadhun and Escape Plan 2: Hades
Joe Griffin, who recorded The Sixth Sense

We thought we’d take the opportunity to have a talk about the best and worst of this list, both in general and over the past year, and also take a nostalgic look back at the year 1999.