clyons Reviews

Have Gun - Will Travel: Birds of a Feather (1958) Season 1, Episode 26

The first re-telling of Dashiell Hammett's "Red Harvest"?

[10 December 2010]

I just saw this episode, and immediately recognized the basic plot elements--talented stranger arrives in town divided between warring gangs, and ends the conflict by playing one side against the other.

Three years later, Akira Kurosawa released "Yojimbo", which retold Hammett's story in feudal Japan, and was much truer to the bloody nature of the original novel than HGWT could ever be. A few years after that, Sergio Leone took the story back to the American West in "A Fistful of Dollars", and they've never stopped remaking it since--last time was with Bruce Willis.

But this is the first time I know of that somebody took Hammett's basic idea and shifted eras and settings. They even tip the hat to Hammett's 'Continental Op' by referring to a Continental Divide Railway.

I wouldn't call this one of the best HGWT eps I've seen, but it's a fascinating bit of pop cultural history, nonetheless--they even beat Kurosawa to the punch. No mean feat. But I doubt he ever saw this episode. He was influenced by the same original source--the genius of Dashiell Hammett.

Artworks (2003)

Cool idea, top notching casting, great music, beautifully filmed, so-so plotting, FANTASTIC Sex Scenes

[4 April 2005]

Basically, that's all there is to say about it. You watch for the art, the dialogue, the acting, the look of the film, the fascinating inside look at the art world, and the unbelievable chemistry between Virginia Madsen and Rick Rossovich. Hell, just seeing Virginia Madsen, who has NEVER looked better, in a role where she is both seduced and seducer, makes it worthwhile. Just entering her fourth decade as she made this film, she radiates sexual charisma, while showing remarkable acting chops in the process. One of the most criminally underutilized actresses in Hollywood, without question--hopefully that will change now. And btw, she was ROBBED at the Oscars.

Emma Becker is a woman in a bad marriage, who feels a special love for lesser known works of art that are ignored and neglected by the shallow people who own them. Rossovich plays Bret, a gallery owner who shares that love, and sees right away that the neglected work of art he most wants to acquire is Emma herself. The best thing about this movie, in fact, is the way it allows all us longtime Madsen-watchers to just bliss out on one of the most beautiful women ever to appear on film--particularly since most of her movies just don't allow her beauty to shine out the way this one does. (And unfortunately, most of her movies make this movie look like a classic.) One irony that occurred to me while watching it on Showtime--Madsen herself has come back into vogue since making this movie, thanks to "Sideways"--probably the main reason "Artworks" is now on DVD and getting shown fairly often on cable. A neat parallel with the events of the film. But while "Sideways" is a better movie than "Artworks" in general terms, "Artworks" is a better movie than "Sideways" if you're a Madsen-holic. And I don't mean her tough guy brother Michael, though he's pretty cool too. (g) There are no good guys or bad guys in this picture--in the end, it's just about people going after what they want, and the not-so-terrible price they pay, and you aren't supposed to sympathize--just recognize that part of yourself that might do the same thing in their place.

You ask yourself--did Bret seduce Emma because he needed her to pull the perfect heist? Or did he come up with the heist as a way to seduce Emma? In the end, it works too well by half, as Emma finds her creative juices being stimulated by the danger, as much as the sex, which become hopelessly intermingled in her mind, like two colors blending together. She can't stop herself--so the movie has to come up with a way to stop her. It's not entirely convincing--can even a villa in Tuscany make up for the loss of her adrenaline high? Can Bret trust this dream come true, when it came at the price of her betraying him? I guess a lot of people would like the chance to find out.

It might have been a lot better, no question. I don't think the ending is a problem, so much as the overly swift resolution of the dilemma the characters find themselves in. But I think it's pointless to judge a movie by what it might have been--you judge a movie by what it is, and this movie is worth seeing if you're interested in art, good acting, great sex scenes, and Virginia Madsen--in that order.

The modern jazz score is done with superb taste, as is the film itself. If you can accept the deficiencies in the script, no worse than many a nifty 1930's Pre-Code picture, you'll have a lot of fun. And did I mention the sex scenes? It takes a big powerful actor like Rossovich not to get totally blown away by Madsen's powerfully erotic presence. Without really getting very explicit by today's standards, they heat up the screen more than any thousand soft core porn-snorers you could catch on Cinemax in late night. Genuine eroticism is a rare quality in movies today. It's almost a lost art in itself, for American movies. Enjoy it while you can. Virgina's got an Oscar nomination now, so she'll probably be doing a lot more straight dramatic roles. Shucks. (g)

A Touch of the Poet (1974 TV Movie)

A brilliant performance of an O'Neill masterpiece

[10/10 · 8 January 2005]

I first saw "A Touch of the Poet" at a small theatre in New York City, a wonderful production that had the audience completely in its power for the play's entire duration. It's widely seen as one of his four late classics, the others being The Iceman Cometh, A Moon for The Misbegotten, and Long Day's Journey Into Night.

This is not a movie, but a filmed stage production, though not in front of a live audience--it's shot on videotape, and editing is limited, but they didn't simply stick a camera in front of the cast and film them. Close-ups are done appropriately, and sometimes this sort of production does a better job for a play than a bigger budget movie, because the focus is on the words and performance, not on cinematographers and directors showing off their visual prowess. Stephen Porter, an acclaimed director of stage revivals of classics, directed this, and did a predictably brilliant job capturing the power of O'Neill's most Irish play, which deals with the traumatic effects of immigration to a new country, but also the disconnect between what a man wants himself to be and what he is, and the pain that results when the two collide.

Fritz Weaver gets into the character beautifully, though one wishes Jason Robards' performance in the role (in the Jose Quintero production on Broadway) had also been preserved for posterity (which I don't believe it was). Nancy Marchand, decades before people suddenly woke up and noticed how amazing she was (in The Sopranos), shows that she can feign being Irish as well as she feigned being Italian. Generally speaking, the brogues are well done (something American actors often have trouble with), only exaggerated and embarrassing when they are SUPPOSED to be (since the whole point of the play is that the "hero" becomes a stage Irishman at the end).

Best of all is Roberta Maxwell's performance as Sarah Melody. This lovely Canadian actress captures the passion and pain of one of O'Neill's greatest female characters, and even as one empathizes with her sorrow, one also triumphs in her victory against the "pale bitch" so effectively portrayed by Carrie Nye. At the end of the play, she has gotten everything she ever wanted--and lost everything that ever mattered. There was supposed to be a cycle of plays about the Melodys, but this is the only one that O'Neill put the finishing touches on. It is easily one of the ten greatest American plays. And one can only feel sorry for any blaguard who can't see that. (g)

Godzilla: Tokyo S.O.S. (2003)

Maybe even worse than "Godzilla vs. Megalon"

[10 September 2004]

I think there's an idea among some of the more inbred factions of Godzilla fandom that a Godzilla movie that shows Godzilla as a "villian" (which is apparently all they got out of the first movie, "Gojira") is by definition a good movie, and any movie that shows The Big G in a more sympathetic light is bad. There's also an unhealthy focus on technical details, which are important, but which don't make a good movie in and of themselves.

The latest entry in this series is badly written, badly directed, badly acted, badly scored (one of the worst film scores I've ever heard), and even if I liked seeing movies where Godzilla loses in the end, I'd think this movie was crap. Of course, I hate every Godzilla movie since "Godzilla 2000", which ended the way a Godzilla movie should end, with Godzilla triumphant over both man and monster alike. But in the end, all I ask in the various interpretations is that they be intelligent fun movies, with good stories, and thrilling fights. This does not qualify.

I'm noticing a trend in the last four films that bothers me--every single one glorifies the military. Though the Japanese Self Defense Force's ineffectual assaults on Godzilla have always been part of the fun, I'm getting the feeling the latest generation of filmmakers working on Godzilla, who never experienced the horrors of being on the losing side of a big war, have an unrealistic and glamorized view of the military. They disguise it a bit by having a lot of female soldiers, but if I see one more goofy salute as a finishing flourish to a Godzilla film, I may barf. Godzilla first came into being as a CONDEMNATION of militarism.

About the latest version of the Shobijin or Infant Island Fairies. Aside from the fact that their singing sucks, is it really so hard to find twin sisters to play these icons of Kaiju Eiga? These girls weren't even the same HEIGHT!

Those who evoke the first few films, with their grim and violent version of Godzilla, are offtrack. Those movies are nothing like the last four, lacking anything close to the emotional depth of the first (HIRE GOOD ACTORS!!) and the visual style of the next few.

Go back to the approaches that work--Honda and Okawara. The new guys can't cut it. And the box office receipts prove it.

To the Shores of Tripoli (1942)

Inferior remake of "Tell It To The Marines"

[9 July 2004]

Not a horrible movie overall, but not a patch on the 1926 silent feature with Lon Chaney as the tough Marine sergeant who has to whip a sassy new recruit into shape, and they come to respect each other, and there's a pretty nurse they both like, and yaddayaddayadda. The plot here is changed a bit, but there's little doubt that it's the same movie, and while Payne and Scott are both solid actors, they can hardly compete with the Man of a Thousand Faces, who was one of the greatest actors who ever lived, with or without makeup. Here it seems like they're too concerned with prettifying the Marine Corps, as opposed to showing the genuine drama involved in the process of training young men to kill and die for their country. The original film was more believable, and much appreciated within the Marine Corps. It had a more compelling story, vastly better acting, and is definitely worth checking out.

I think the others who have commented here have summed up the picture's strengths and failings. I just wanted to set the record straight--this movie is a remake, so it shouldn't be considered the wellspring of films like "An Officer and a Gentleman" (a very good movie) and "Pearl Harbor" (a wretchedly awful movie). "Tell It To The Marines" is the wellspring of ALL these films, and the best of the bunch by a long shot. Though it doesn't have a naked Debra Winger writhing on top of Richard Gere, obviously. Eleanor Boardman makes a lovely military nurse, but she keeps her clothes on at all time. (g)

I only watched "To the Shores of Tripoli" because I mistakenly thought it was going to be the 1950 release "Tripoli", starring Payne as one of the very first Marines, back in Thomas Jefferson's administration, taking on Barbary Pirates and such. Maureen O'Hara plays a seductive countess who wears various lowcut slinky numbers. Now THAT's entertainment!

Anna to the Infinite Power (1983 TV Movie)

Believe it or not, this film was plagiarized to make an X-Files episode

[12 May 2004]

I caught it last night, and was struck immediately by the very direct similarities between it and "Eve", a first-season X-Files episode, about (you guessed it) little girl clones who have many of the same problems as Anna, only they also kill people, and don't seem to have human emotions. And an older clone shows up to monitor the progress of her "sisters". And the evil scientist (played by Jack Gilford!) has a greenhouse almost identical to an evil Nazi scientist who appeared in a later X-Files episode. The plot points in common are too numerous to be coincidence, and I kind of gasped at the end when Anna says she's going to change her name to "Eve".

Obviously Chris Carter saw this movie, and passed the ideas on to the writers who did "Eve". It's an old pattern for him.

Portrait: A Man Whose Name Was John (1973 TV Movie)

I remember seeing this as if it were yesterday

[10 March 2004]

I just happened to see it on television as a small child, and I can remember whole segments of it. Burr was amazingly powerful as the great voice for sanity and compassion in the Church, Angelo Roncalli, the only Pope that I, raised a Catholic, can truly say I revere and admire as a man.

Roncalli's magnificent efforts to save Jewish children in Turkey and Bulgaria, depicted in this film, do not absolve the entire Church from complicity in the Holocaust, and he himself knew this all too well. Hannah Arendt met with him, and asked what he planned to do against "The Deputy", a play that depicted Piux XII as silent and uncaring in the face of the Nazi exterminations. His reply was "What can you do against the truth?"

So don't use this great and holy man to whitewash the memory of a small and banal one. Pius was not an anti-semite, so much as he was a coward, afraid of what the Nazis would do to him if he spoke out too strongly--in truth, he made it clear early on that he was only concerned with Jewish converts to Christianity. Most of the Jews saved under his watch were not saved by him directly--the Gregory Peck film about Father Flannery shows that he was really only concerned with the survival of the Church as an Institution. He was quite willing to collaborate with the Nazis, if the Nazis won. He was also a racist, and refused to let black American GI's come inside Vatican City, because he thought they'd rape the nuns.

Not a good man. But John XXIII was as great and good a man as the 20th century ever saw. This film is a moving tribute to his humanity and faith. I only wish the Church he tried so valiantly to change better appreciated how right he was.

Farscape: Premiere (1999) Season 1, Episode 1

It was the best of shows, it was the worst of shows

[27 August 2003]

I caught the very first airing of the Farscape pilot, and knew there was huge potential there. The first season had some clinkers, but mainly they kept improving and deepening the powerful central concept of the show, which was basically about a group of disparate characters thrown together by circumstance, with different agendas, all trying to work together, so they could survive. As creator Rockne O'Bannon made clear, Farscape was about creative anarchy--this was a ship without a captain.

The second season was the show's peak, both creatively and in terms of the ratings. The production values were unbelievable--they should have been, because David Kemper, running the show only because its creator didn't want to live in Australia, ran up massive budget overruns--we didn't know at the time that Farscape went 20 million overbudget in season two, and 30 million overbudget in season three. We also didn't realize that even in season one, the show was budgeted at well over two million dollars an episode. To this day, many fans refuse to accept this, but a Henson executive confirmed this in an interview in a magazine called Kidscreen, back in 1999--look it up on Lexis-Nexis, if you don't believe me.

Season three had some amazing moments, but the loss of Virginia Hey as Zhaan (which was entirely preventable, as she had only asked to appear in fewer episodes, and her makeup could have been changed to avoid the health problems it was causing) was the first really critical blow to the show's narrative momentum. The various new characters brought into the mix almost never worked out, and served to annoy and (no pun intended) alienate many fans of the show. The ratings fell in season three, and most of the excuses dredged up by diehard fans don't hold water. The problem wasn't how the show was promoted, the problem was that it was starting to lose its way, get away from the things that mattered. Nonetheless, season three ended powerfully--and then, at the last moment, sprang the ultimate show-killing cliche--Aeryn Sun was pregnant! And we didn't know who the father was! ::gassssp!::

In season four, we were treated to an increasingly embarassing succession of badly written episodes. The cast did their best to make it work, but the chemistry was mainly gone, and an aura of doom lay over the show. O'Bannon's Creative Anarchy was scuttled by the increasing overemphasis on

John Crichton (who was always the focal point of the show, but wasn't supposed to be a macho superhero), and the puzzling decision to make D'Argo the "captain"--even though we almost never saw him give an order--he'd keep looking at Crichton to see what he was supposed to do. Just like everybody else. The way the formerly strong independent female characters were treated was an abomination.

They chickened out--obviously the show's producers knew they were on thin ice, and were in no way guaranteed a fifth season, despite the two-year renewal (which was not a guarantee of a fifth season, merely the guarantee that the Henson Company would be paid a kill-fee if the show was cancelled at the end of season four). They overemphasized the Crichton/Aeryn relationship, which had been a great subplot, but couldn't hope to carry the show on its own. They gave less and less time to the other original characters, all of whom had strong followings of their own--this problem was exacerbated by the new regulars, Jool, Sikozu, Noranti--it wasn't the fault of the actors who played them, the characters were simply badly conceived, and the writers never seemed to know what to do with them. They focused on the things they thought got the best reaction from the American audience, but this merely unbalanced the show, and destroyed what had made it so special.

One other thing we didn't realize at the time was that Rockne O'Bannon, who had stopped running the show after season one, had given constant feedback and advice to Kemper in the next two seasons--but had absolutely no input into season four. It showed. Whatever virtues Mr. Kemper may have had, long-term story planning was not among them. Neither was working with writers--most of the people who had written good scripts for the show were driven away by Kemper's managerial style, and those that remained were no longer producing scripts of the highest calibre. Even Richard Manning, whose brilliant standalones had won the show a measure of critical respect, failed to deliver the goods in season four--and actually only wrote two episodes, after contributing three to each of the previous seasons. Perhaps part of the problem was simple weariness--the production schedules must have been murder, and they reached the point where they simply couldn't top themselves anymore. Farscape was never meant to have a long run. Unfortunately, it ran a year too long.

Furthermore, it seemed that Kemper was determined to make it as hard as possible for new viewers to get into the show, which was something of an acquired taste to begin with--my attempts to get friends and family to watch never worked out. Farscape became a closed society of hardcore fans, shutting out more and more potential viewers, leaving a tiny faction that still loved it more than life (literally--it was frightening to watch at times), and couldn't possibly justify its massive budgets. But another thing we didn't know, of course, was that SciFi had told Kemper he couldn't go overbudget anymore--and he still blew much of the season four budget on "Crichton Kicks", an episode that hardly anybody liked, which helped assure that season four was the lowest rated season in the show's history. The series finale, in spite of all the furor surrounding the cancellation, got lacklustre ratings, and showed quite clearly that Farscape never had a chance of becoming a hit.

But for all that, this was the best genre show of the late 90's/early 00's--for three years, this was the show that counted. Such a damn shame it had to end so badly, but a fifth season would have been worse. The last episode worth watching is called "Into the Lion's Den/Wolf in Sheep's Clothing", the last script by Rockne O'Bannon, and I'd strongly advise anyone picking up on the show to leave it there--it's the best series finale this show will ever have. What happened afterwards is simply another fictional reality, with much less interesting characters, and a story that becomes increasingly hard to care about.

People are still saying that Farscape will return, but nobody at Henson is even talking about anything more than a miniseries (or possibly an anime version, which I think everybody agrees would be a disaster). The chances of a new season are simply nonexistent, and only the most self-deluded fans think otherwise. Claudia Black does a commentary track on the DVD of the episode "The Choice", where she tells people to stop spending time and money trying to bring the show back, and to turn their energies to saving our planet. And the people behind the doomed movement to bring the show back simply blew her off. Even a goddess can be dismisssed when her words don't please the faithful, it would seem.

;-)

Godzilla, Mothra and King Ghidorah: Giant Monsters All-Out Attack (2001)

Godzilla: King of the Little Orphan Annie rejects?

[30 June 2003]

As another reviewer here said, I also really wanted to like this movie. I wanted to just be able to SEE this movie, actually. I finally got a decent videocopy, letterboxed, subtitled, and was all set for what was reported to be a terrific Godzilla movie. I have seen every single previous Godzilla movie, and have found something to enjoy in all of them, including "Godzilla's Revenge" and "Godzilla vs. The Smog Monster" (aka "Gojira vs. Hedorah", oh you knew which one I meant).

I simply didn't like it. If I had, it would be the first Kaneko kaiju eiga I had liked, though in fairness, I've only seen the first of his Gamera films. I found a few scenes interesting, a few ideas (the shellshocked reporter peddling on a bicycle, trying to keep up with Godzilla--and somehow succeeding) a bit interesting. The minute something interesting came up, it got lost in the muddled plot, and uninteresting and two-dimensional human characters. And by that, I mean the human characters were uninteresting and two-dimensional by GODZILLA MOVIE standards.

I get that it's an attempt to do something different, and that it's an alternate reality, and doesn't impinge upon or undo the mainly better movies that came before it. But speaking as a lifelong Godzilla fan, who wants to see this franchise continue forever, I am relieved to know that we will never see this particular reality ever again.

Yes, Godzilla was a real threat to Japan here--big deal, he was in most of the movies made for the last two decades. He hasn't been a superhero since the 70's, this is the first time I've seen him portrayed as a supervillian, which is worse. I like to see Godzilla win, okay? "Godzilla vs. Mothra", considered by many to be the best G-flick ever, will always be one of my least favorites, because he gets whipped by two little caterpillars, and it makes absolutely no sense. Here he easily dispatches three classic Kaiju, and it makes even less sense. Dramatically, how can you have a good fight if the outcome is so obviously a foregone conclusion? And having made him so invincible, the movie then cheats, finding a (most improbable) way to defeat him. Okay, if the object is to make this Godzilla the baddest ever, why not just let him destroy Japan? It sure isn't out of consideration for the feelings of the audience--they make a big joke out of his deliberately killing innocent (and deeply deeply stupid) people, and anyway, Japanese cinema has not flinched from visions of The End--quite the opposite. And George Romero's puny zombies were able to devour most of America. Why shouldn't the King of the Monsters just ONCE get to crush Japan? The destruction we see is no worse than that of any other G-film, just more wanton and deliberate. Godzilla doesn't love us, he doesn't hate us, he just doesn't CARE. That's the way to do it. Godzilla is not the angry spirits of American and Asian victims of Japanese imperialism, but rather he stands for enraged nature itself. He's not specifically angry at Japan, but it'd be too expensive to hire a lot of American actors so he could be shown crushing New York. The one time this was tried, it really didn't work out, though that was hardly Toho's fault.

My point is just that for all the supposed hardcore elements of this film, it is ultimately pretty wimpy compared to the best Heisei films, let alone the original 1954 movie. It has a stupid disjointed script, lacklustre acting (again, by Godzilla film standards), and the battles really aren't great, though some of the visuals are good.

This is not the future of Godzilla. I sure hope not, anyway.

Skyscraper Souls (1932)

One of Maureen O'Sullivan's best films

[12 June 2003]

Back in the early 30's, Maureen O'Sullivan was the quintessential "good girl who wants to be bad", which is to say, she seemed prim and proper on the surface, but a powerfully sexy woman lay right underneath that surface, who would only come out for the right guy--or sometimes the wrong guy.

Though she is not exactly the star of this movie, she did get second billing after Warren William, in spite of being so new to the motion picture biz. This was probably in response to her having appeared as Jane in the first Weissmuller Tarzan film, not long before. That remains her best role--she is essentially the protagonist in the first two Tarzan movies--she's the one who is changing, casting aside the sexual mores of her society, and joining Tarzan in his idyllic state of noble savagery.

In the urban jungle of "Skyscraper Souls", she plays a less idyllic character, wanting to enjoy both sexual passion and social respectability, along with a decent income. Nobody can offer her everything she wants, so she's left with two imperfect choices--the poor young clerk she likes, who will offer marriage. And the sexy ruthless tycoon she REALLY likes, who will take her as his "ward" (that is to say, his mistress) and possibly cast her aside in a decade or so, assuming he isn't too old to care by that point. Of course, she'd be set for life, even if that happened. But by the point in the film where she gives into him, she almost seems past caring about that. She's tried to follow the rules, and society has only penalized her for it. The man who supposedly loves her doesn't trust her, and she's feeling powerfully drawn to David Dwight, who understands her perfectly, and doesn't stand in judgment of anybody--least of all himself. He's a bastard, who destroys people to get what he wants--but he doesn't pretend to be anything else. He doesn't care about respectability or morality. Very few rich men truly do, but most like to at least pretend.

This pre-code film has it both ways, regarding the denouement of this particular sub-plot--you can, if you wish, believe that Lynn is saved from the proverbial Fate Worse Than Death, by the not entirely selfless intervention of her friend, Dwight's former mistress. But in truth, a number of days have passed since Lynn gave in to Dwight's advances, she seems awfully comfortable in his embrace, she's wearing clothes he bought for her, and is obviously living in his penthouse. Dwight is not the kind of man who is going to wait until he gets her on the yacht to have his pleasure. He's already gotten what he--and she--wanted. Even in the pre-code era, this is a bit too subversive, which is why the movie deftly clouds the issue of whether they've had sex or not. But there can be no doubt of her eagerness--by this point, she wouldn't leave Dwight for the bank clerk, even if the clerk could offer her everything she asked for.

With Dwight gone, she'll marry her bank clerk, and raise a family, and perhaps count herself lucky to have gotten to experience a bit of the high life before settling down. But one wonders if the bank clerk will end up wondering why their first kid doesn't look like him. I'm reading a great deal into this, of course. I really hated the bank clerk, btw.

;-)

Madame Bovary (1975)

Probably no finer adaptation of a classic novel

[15 February 2003]

I couldn't but marvel that this British mini-series adaptation of Flaubert's novel hadn't been commented upon. Francesca Annis was unquestionably the definitive Emma Bovary, and casting as a whole was impeccable. I remember watching this on Masterpiece Theatre, and being captivated (and aroused) by the impassioned fervor for life Annis imparts to the character. And Tom Conti was an idea Dr. Bovary, far better than Van Heflin in the Hollywood version of the novel.

I haven't seen every adaption of this book, but I'd be very surprised to learn that this one wasn't far and away the best. It ended with Emma on her deathbed, imagining herself as a young girl, chasing a butterfly, that somehow just eludes her.

The X Files (1998)

The beginning of a long downward spiral

[16 July 2002]

Many longterm fans of "The X-Files" TV show were happily anticipating this feature film, but the predominant reaction when it finally arrived was disappointment--and the beginning in earnest of a four year slide in the Nielson ratings.

Where to begin? The typical Chris Carter incoherent plotting and wooden dialogue, only stretched out to fill two hours of screentime. The story, heavily borrowed from the SciFi classic "Quatermass 2", and without any attempt to credit the makers of that earlier film. Product placement is everywhere, and not terribly subtle either. But that would be forgiveable, if we'd been given a decent story to follow. As it turned out, the ensuing sixth season of the TV show barely even referred to it.

For both "shippers" and "noromos", the long touted Mulder/Scully kiss was a travesty--and to make such a scene the central moment of the film only served to show how bankrupt the imaginations of the storytellers were. And how bored Duchovny and Anderson were with each other by that point. (g)

What was particularly depressing was how obviously the film was of established SciFi summer film cliches, from "Star Wars" to "Alien"--yet for some reason, Carter still felt he was entitled to take a potshot at "Independence Day", even though the huge spaceship at the end is mightily reminiscent of the ones in that brainless but reasonably well-made alien invasion flick. The SFX for Carter's film didn't impress anybody terribly much--we'd seen more innovative and effective visuals back in the early days of the show, when it was about the power of suggestion, as opposed to showing us everything--and then pretending nothing had been shown.

The box office worldwide was decent, but not impressive, given how many viewers the show had around the world--here in the U.S., it became painfully apparent that a surprisingly large percentage of regular viewers of the show hadn't even gone to see it once. At that point in time, there were quite a few of them, but their numbers would diminish mightily in the next few years, as it became apparent that the movie, rather than serving as a new beginning, had merely marked a convenient endpoint to the saga of Mulder and Scully. And a lacklustre conclusion it was. But far better than the one Carter gave us at the end of season nine.

If there was any truth to be found in here, it was that Carter was not ever the secret of his own success, as a clear-eyed viewing of his lacklustre IMDb resume will indicate. The true architects of 'X' were Glen Morgan and James Wong, at least in the early seasons. But in truth, no one person could ever take all of the credit. Which didn't stop Carter from trying.