X-Files Redux

We saw the new X-Files movie this evening. Here are my initial impressions.

It’s definitely an X-file, though with a much darker edge. There are no alien conspiracies in this one (although I did catch a glimpse in one scene of what appeared to be the shadow of an alien through a curtain — totally inconsequential to the plot). The plot instead descends into a maelstrom of human depravity that will leave some viewers squirming in their seats. This is definitely not one of the more light-hearted episodes of the series.

I was especially intrigued by the changes in the primary characters. Mulder and Scully have definitely aged, and the years have not been kind to them. We’re given hints of bitter disappointments in their recent past that have drastically altered the careers of both. They are individually struggling to rebuild their lives, and that search, as always, brings them back together again. But the playful sparring that once characterized their relationship is gone, replaced by a sad, desperate search for purpose. Only at the very end are we given a glimmer of hope that their efforts at personal redemption might be paying off.

A couple of Easter egg notices: During a scene where Mulder is fumbling with his cell phone directory while driving a car, look carefully at the names on the phone. I thought I caught a glimpse of the name “Gillian”. In another scene, as the camera follows Scully through a hospital hall, there is a gentleman seated on a bench to the left of the screen that looks remarkably like Chris Carter, the director and producer.

Finally, be sure to stay through the credits to the end. There is a brief vignette that is sure to raise a lot of questions about the future of our resolute heroes — the first question being, will there be a third movie?

Chris Carter on the new X-Files Movie

Hugh Hart of Wired.Com interviews Chris Carter, producer and director of the new X-FIles movie, opening this Friday. Includes interesting insights into the extraordinary lengths he went to prevent spoilers from leaking during production.

Here’s the trailer:

Indiana Jones and Karen Allen

David Kaplan confesses to having a crush on actress Karen Allen, who, in the latest Indiana Jones movie opening this week, reprises her role as the archaeologist’s love interest from the original movie.

Those beguiling freckles, the radiant blue eyes, the husky voice, the enchanting smile—and the white dress she wears as Marion Ravenwood in the first of the “Indy” movies. If you didn’t have a crush on her from early on in the movie when she drinks men under the table and then decks Indy with a right to the chin, or when she escapes a harrowing pit of snakes, then that dress surely would have been enough.

You can catch a glimpse of her near the end of this trailer for the movie. (Alas, she’s not wearing the white dress.)

UPDATE: Here is an interesting interview with Karen Allen (bonus: includes a pic of her in the white dress).

X-Files: “I Want to Believe”

That’s the official name of the new X-Files movie, due in theaters July 25. Chris Carter, the director, describes the extraordinary lengths to which he went to keep the plot secret from the public. He did reveal, however, that the usual aliens conspiracy does not play a role in this movie.

The Evolution Debate

While I was in Miami last week, I watched a show on the Discovery Channel called “Before the Dinosaurs,” a documentary on the reptilian creatures that supposedly inhabited the earth before the dinosaurs evolved. It was a very slick production, using state-of-the-art CGI graphics to create scenes so realistic that you’d think it was filmed. In fact, it was designed to mimic a real documentary, the sort of thing you’d see on “Animal Planet.” For example, as large creatures lumbered by, the “camera” would shake, or when a predator ripped into his prey, “blood” would splatter on the “camera” lens. The narrator even described insignificant little behaviors to give the scenes added realism, like the two male reptiles fighting each other who would do some sort of push-ups to display their aggressiveness. How could scientists possibly know that little detail?

The whole thrust of this documentary, of course, was to further solidify in the minds of viewers the unassailable fact of evolution. Evolution is so thoroughly established, we might as well make the documentary as real as possible.

But like every other scientific theory involving processes we cannot directly observe, evolution is still subject to debate — and its adherents have cause to stack the evidence and silence their opposition. A new documentary is coming out soon that addresses the difficulties in evolution, and the intellectual chicanery that props it up. Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed is the brainchild of Ben Stein. Matt Barber has reviewed the film, and it promises to be a good one. I’m looking forward to seeing it.

Enchanted

Now out on DVD.

This clip notwithstanding, Enchanted is really not a musical, but a clever take on a Disney-animation-meets-modern-romance idea. The fresh-faced innocence of Amy Adams and the good-hearted but world-weary Patrick Dempsey make a perfect couple. Highly recommended.

Submit — Or Be Expelled

They claim the debate is over on this one, too, but the skeptics just won’t go away — thank goodness. Ben Stein has a new documentary coming out this spring on the ideological war against those who would question Darwinism.

I remember well as a junior high school student in the early 1960’s the furor that arose when some educators wanted the freedom to merely mention evolution as a possible alternative to the traditional “divine origin” theory of cosmogony. Today, the controversy has been completely reversed: secularists control the reigns of power in academe, and those who even question Darwinism are silenced without mercy.

If it was a “freedom of speech” issue in the 1960’s, why is it not a freedom of speech issue today? (Hint: It was never about free speech.)

[Thanks for the link, Kay!]

The Happening — Movie Trailer

Catch a glimpse of the next M. Night Shyamalan movie, The Happening. It stars Mark Wahlberg, one of my favorites. Opens June 13.

I hope this one is better than his last, Lady in the Water. Shyamalan‘s creative juices appeared to be running low in that one.

Finally — A Realistic Iraq War Movie?

John at OPFOR reports that Hollywood is making a movie based on the book No True Glory: The Battle for Fallujah, a gripping account of the Marine assault on Fallujah in 2004. Harrison Ford will star as a Marine general.

Can’t wait!

Indiana Jones Returns

I know the title of the new Indiana Jones movie, scheduled to release in May 2008. Do you?

A Fourth Bourne Movie?

I just saw The Bourne Ultimatum this evening, the final installment of the Bourne Trilogy. It had all the elements that have made this franchise such a hit with moviegoers: action, intrigue, ingenious super-sleuth technology, shocking plot twists, and the requisite car chase. Not to mention, Matt Damon makes a really cool spy. The only negative I would give the movie is the herky-jerky camera movement. The technique was quite effective in the first two movies, but in this episode the wild camera swings were way over the top.

The movie is a huge hit, which raises the question of whether or not there will be a fourth movie. Chris Nashawity holds out some promise, but suggests there may be a hiatus for awhile. There’s one very obvious reason:

There’s the question of what the superspy would do in a fourth film. Robert Ludlum wrote only three Bourne books before he died, in 2001, and then Eric Van Lustbader put out the next two in his stead. In any case, the films have never had much in common with the books, titles notwithstanding. ”I just don’t see what story you could do that would feel right,” says Damon. ”It’s not like you can bump him on the head again and give him amnesia. Someone suggested we could do one where Bourne loses his car keys . . . .” If that’s what they’re coming up with, maybe a break isn’t a bad idea.

UPDATE (8/7/07): NY Post columnist Cindy Adams announces a fourth sequel is a “done deal.” But no quotes to back up that claim.

UPDATE (9/3/07): Judging from the link stats on this blog, there must be a lot of interest in another Bourne movie. Every weekend — when people are most likely to go to a movie — this particular blog entry gets barraged with hits. Apparently folks rush home from the theater and immediately get online to see when the next one is coming out.

UPDATE (12/7/07): Peter Sciretta sees evidence Matt Damon is now open to the possibility of a fourth movie. Quoting Damon:

“If Paul Greengrass, maybe years down the road, was interested in doing another one, then I would do it, too,” he said. “I don’t think either of us completely put the character to bed yet.”

But given the mediocre quality of the last two books, Sciretta thinks Hollywood might be better served to come up with an entirely new plotline for a fourth movie.

UPDATE (12/28/07): For his part, director Paul Greengrass won’t commit to doing a fourth movie — but neither will he rule it out.

I remember at the end of Supremacy you could just feel people coming out of the theatres wanting another one. You could just feel it in the audience and they’re the people who should decide that – not me or the studio or anybody else. If an audience wants another one that’ll be because there are some unresolved questions at the end of this one. They won’t want one if they feel that the story has come to its end.

So what is it, Bourne fans: Do we want a fourth movie?

UPDATE (2/23/08): It’s official — there will definitely be a fourth movie!

UPDATE (6/25/08): Producer Frank Marshall has announced that shooting of the fourth movie will begin in the summer of 2009, with release scheduled for 2010. The story line will be something original involving South America — nothing based on any of the books that followed the Robert Ludlum originals.

Top Ten War Movies

John at OPFOR offers his top ten war movies of all time. Of the ten, I’ve seen only four: Patton (#1), Saving Private Ryan (#3), The Longest Day (#8), and Bridge on the River Kwai (#10). He didn’t put Band of Brothers on the list, but only because it’s a mini-series, not a movie. I’ve seen that one, too.

In looking over the list, it occurred to me that the picks I have seen also happen to be the only World War II movies on the list. (Okay, if you don’t include Alexander Nevsky, a Russian production from 1938).

My list would also include Gettysburg, The Patriot, and Lord of the Rings.

Hey, he didn’t say the wars had to be real wars, did he?

Computers in the Movies

A few months ago usability guru Jacob Neilsen wrote a great piece on the Top Ten Usability Bloopers in the Movies — basically, a list of the most common unrealistic computer features that show up in the movies. Like the hero instantly recognizing and using the interface on a strange computer system; or the huge blinking fonts that shout “Access Denied.”

The whole article is a hoot, but even better was a follow-up article detailing the corny computer action in the 1996 film Independence Day. The highlight of incredulity occurs when Jeff Goldbloom reaches the alien mothership with his trusty laptop, instantly connects with the alien network, and uploads a virus that destroys the ship and saves planet Earth. I rolled my eyes when I first saw that scene, but Neilsen and his readers really have fun with it. For example:

If the interface was wireless – was that 802.11a/b/c/g/n/whatever, some WiMax variation, some cellular platform etc. and how nice that the FCC allocated a compatible frequency range to the aliens.

Also:

Did the aliens really design their APIs with a call to blowUpTheShipAsSoonAsTheGoodGuysGetFarEnoughAway(), as an easy-to-get-to routine? (sadly the answer is probably yes)

One reader notes that the aliens obviously failed to protect their network with “Norton Anti-virus, Alien Mothership Edition.” But another reader counters that

They disabled Norton Mothership Edition – it kept on pestering them to get updates and to upgrade. It’s difficult to get new antivirus signatures when the nearest MotherShip Software Authorized Retailer is 100 light-years away.

Only computer geeks will really get the humor in all this, but it amply illustrates the license that scriptwriters take with technology when the scene calls for a computer.

Michael Moore’s Sick Solution

Austan Goolsbee is an economic advisor to Barak Obama. He has written a pretty good critique of Michael Moore’s latest movie, Sicko, a propaganda piece for socialized health care. Goolsbee exposes Moore’s use of cherry-picked anecdotes and selective facts to hide the real truth about what a free nationalized health care system would cost.

So, to do as Moore wants in the United States, you would need to do more than just overcome the insurance industry. You would need to cut the salaries of doctors, reform the legal system, enrage our allies by causing their prescription drug costs to escalate, and accustom patients to a central decision-maker authorized to determine what procedures they are and are not allowed to get. Unless every one of these changes comes together, Moore’s new system would end up costing an enormous amount of money.

Everybody agrees that the present system is flawed, and I doubt that I would agree with Goolsbee’s own prescription for improvement. But Moore’s solution is a dishonest attempt to dupe Americans into chasing a something-for-nothing fantasy.

Horatio Hornblower Movie?

A&E apparently has no interest in pursuing the exciting (but terribly expensive) Horatio Hornblower television series. So the lead actor, Ioan Gruffudd, is contemplating moving forward on a big screen version of a full-length movie himself. It would be a remake of the 1951 Gregory Peck original.

If he thought playing the lead role in the TV series was tough, wait ’till he starts trying to obtain rights to the books, secure funding, set up a production company, etc., etc.

The Proposal: A Short Film

Ah, for the sweet, tender love movies of long ago. . . . with an ending that will leave you rolling in the aisle.

Another Must-See Film

The documentary Islam vs. Islamists was produced by, among others, conservative columnist Frank Gaffney, Jr., originally as one feature in a six-part series by PBS. However, PBS eventually pulled it, touching off howls of protest from conservatives who claimed the network was stifling a point of view that deserves to be heard.

The often-disquieting 52-minute film explores the struggles of moderate American Muslims at the hands of their radical brethren and gives details about a “parallel” Islamist society that is slowly but surely developing within the U.S. borders.

PBS has finally yielded, and will offer the film on a stand-alone basis to any affiliate that wishes to air it. Look for it in your area.

Pirates 3

A lengthy trailer for the third and final Pirates of the Caribbean movie.

The critics positively hate it. So it’s gotta be good!

UPDATE: Or maybe this is not the final movie?

Get Out Your Light Sabers

In celebration of the 30th anniversary of the original Star Wars, LucasFilm, Ltd., is showing all six of the Star Wars films in a marathon screening at the L.A. Convention Center today. Let’s see . . . at this writing, the tired fans are probably into the fifth film. Just one more to go . . .

No word on whether they are showing the films in the order they were released, or in the order of the story line. Either way,  I’ll bet the survivors of this grueling event won’t want to see another one for a long time.

Lessons from 300

Jack Kelly, on the surprising success of the movie 300: “It is the soldier, not the priest, who protects freedom of religion; the soldier, not the journalist, who protects freedom of speech. History teaches that a society that does not value its warriors will be destroyed by a society that does.”

VDH on “300”

Victor Davis Hanson, one of my favorite historians, reviews the new Zach Snyder movie “300.” He prefaces it with a superb sketch of the battle of Thermopylae and its place in history, honoring “this universal idea of Western soldiers willing to die as free men rather than to submit to tyranny.”

UPDATE: Liberals hate it “as a textbook example of how race-baiting fantasy and nationalist myth can serve as an incitement to total war.” The parallels to our modern struggle must strike close to home.