If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

The X-Files

11.5 Ghouli

(SPOILERS) Perhaps great partnerships should never break up. Together, Glen Morgan and James Wong wrote some of the best episodes of the original run, but their solo efforts for the return have been entirely adequate, entirely unremarkable. Wong’s the better director of the two, as his feature work on a couple of Final Destinations evidenced, but it isn’t enough to make Ghouli seem either necessary or earned, particularly as it returns to the barren well of not-so-wee William.

The most curious aspect of the episode is that it feels as if Wong decided he had to shotgun wedding two diverse concepts, such that the seams show unforgivingly. As a consequence, I was initially waiting for a reveal that Scully had fooled herself into thinking Jackson Van De Kamp (Miles Robbins) was William, and she was being duped by a creepy kid. After all, why would said creepy kid be engineering a Slenderman-inspired encounter between his two girlfriends Brianna (Sarah Jeffery) and Sarah (Madeleine Arthur), in which they attack each other imagining the other is a monster, unless he was a bit of a loon? That we’re supposed to sympathise with what he did, because he was apologetically unable to control his id, doesn’t really wash, and evidences awkward attempts to finesse the material.

Mulder: This is my problem with modern day monsters, Scully. There’s no chance for emotional investment.

As a result, the Ghouli/Slenderman side is given short shrift, aside from the effective opening teaser featuring derelict ship the Chimera; on one level, this might be for the best, since we only just had a psychically projected adversary in Plus One. On another, it’s a flagrant waste of a modern urban legend that has had actual rather nasty consequences. The opening scenes also take in Mulder quoting Edgar Cayce (“Dreams are today’s answers to tomorrow’s questions”), a first for the series I think, so probably overdue, and also an effectively staged dream paralysis encounter between Scully and her son.

The conspiracy side of Ghouli is typically muddled and murky, hastened along by an unwieldy burst of exposition from Skinner attempting to marry alien-human hybrid experimentation with Mulder and Scully’s – or CSM’s and Scully’s – son. There’s some effective old-style law enforcement friction as Mulder encounters Detective Costa (Louis Ferreira), who’d rather just put the case to bed, and DoD guys hot on the trail of Jackson/William. Scully meanwhile receives pep talks from who she thinks may be the architect of the hybrid programme (Peter Wong of Lost fame) but turns out to be Jackson pulling some psychic shapeshifting. I’m still not really going for Scully’s emotional burden over having lost William, but that’s because I was completely uninvested in the plotline in the first place.

Having Skinner reluctantly working with CSM again is plain annoying, especially as it involves actually helping Mulder and in so doing duping him. We learn that a Dr Matsumoto developed eugenics programme Project Crossroads, eventually forsaken due to the unpredictable attributes manifesting in test subjects, and that it was defunded 15 years ago (as if something like that would ever really be knocked on the head), with the doctor going on the run and the DoD trying to track down his test subjects.

Not only is the unwanted William manifesting big time (but joy, he connects with mom), but we’re back at the unholy mess that was the Season 10 finale, as it’s still very much in line of sight – William is dreaming of the apocalypse, just like Sculls. Wong keeps the episode watchable, incorporating several effective set pieces such as the hospital altercation in which William causes DoD guys to see each other as first Ghouli and then Scully, but so far this season has very much kept in step with the previous (as such the media response of a return to form feels like wishful thinking); crap Carter mythology, merely acceptable Morgan & Wongs, and only Darin to remind you just how good the show can be.

Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.

Your Mickey Mouse is one big stupid dope!

Enemy Mine (1985) (SPOILERS) The essential dynamic of Enemy Mine – sworn enemies overcome their differences to become firm friends – was a well-ploughed one when it was made, such that it led to TV Tropes assuming, since edited, that it took its title from an existing phrase (Barry Longyear, author of the 1979 novella, made it up, inspired by the 1961 David Niven film The Best of Enemies ). The Film Yearbook Volume 5 opined that that Wolfgang Petersen’s picture “ lacks the gritty sauciness of Hell in the Pacific”; John Boorman’s WWII film stranded Lee Marvin and Toshiro Mifune on a desert island and had them first duking it out before becoming reluctant bedfellows. Perhaps germanely, both movies were box office flops.

If I do nothing else, I will convince them that Herbert Stempel knows what won the goddam Academy Award for Best goddam Picture of 1955. That’s what I’m going to accomplish.

Quiz Show (1994) (SPOILERS) Quiz Show perfectly encapsulates a certain brand of Best Picture nominee: the staid, respectable, diligent historical episode, a morality tale in response to which the Academy can nod their heads approvingly and discerningly, feeding as it does their own vainglorious self-image about how times and attitudes have changed, in part thanks to their own virtuousness. Robert Redford’s film about the 1950s Twenty-One quiz show scandals is immaculately made, boasts a notable cast and is guided by a strong screenplay from Paul Attanasio (who, on television, had just created the seminal Homicide: Life on the Streets ), but it lacks that something extra that pushes it into truly memorable territory.

No one can be told what the Matrix is. You have to see it for yourself.

The Matrix (1999) (SPOILERS) Twenty years on, and the articles are on the defining nature of The Matrix are piling up, most of them touching on how its world has become a reality, or maybe always was one. At the time, its premise was engaging enough, but it was the sum total of the package that cast a spell – the bullet time, the fashions, the soundtrack, the comic book-as-live-action framing and styling – not to mention it being probably the first movie to embrace and reflect the burgeoning Internet ( Hackers doesn’t really count), and subsequently to really ride the crest of the DVD boom wave. And now? Now it’s still really, really good.

Piece by piece, the camel enters the couscous.

The Forgiven (2021) (SPOILERS) By this point, the differences between filmmaker John Michael McDonagh and his younger brother, filmmaker and playwright Martin McDonagh, are fairly clearly established. Both wear badges of irreverence and provocation in their writing, and a willingness to tackle – or take pot-shots – at bigger issues, ones that may find them dangling their toes in hot water. But Martin receives the lion’s share of the critical attention, while John is generally recognised as the slightly lesser light. Sure, some might mistake Seven Psychopaths for a John movie, and Calvary for a Martin one, but there’s a more flagrant sense of attention seeking in John’s work, and concomitantly less substance. The Forgiven is clearly aiming more in the expressly substantial vein of John’s earlier Calvary, but it ultimately bears the same kind of issues in delivery.

In a few moments, you will have an experience that will seem completely real. It will be the result of your subconscious fears transformed into your conscious awareness.

Brainstorm (1983) (SPOILERS) Might Brainstorm have been the next big thing – a ground-breaking, game-changing cinematic spectacle that had as far reaching consequences as Star Wars (special effects) or Avatar (3D) – if only Douglas Trumbull had been allowed to persevere with his patented “Showscan” process (70mm film photographed and projected at 60 frames per second)? I suspect not; one only has to look at the not-so-far-removed experiment of Ang Lee with Billy Lynn’s Long Halftime Walk , and how that went down like a bag of cold sick, to doubt that any innovation will necessarily catch on (although Trumbull at least had a narrative hinge on which to turn his “more real than real” imagery, whereas Lee’s pretty much boiled down to “because it was there”). Brainstorm ’s story is, though, like its title, possibly too cerebral, too much concerned with the consciousness and touting too little of the cloyingly affirmative that Bruce Rubin inevitably brings to his screenplays. T

Haven’t you ever heard of the healing power of laughter?

Batman (1989) (SPOILERS) There’s Jaws , there’s Star Wars , and then there’s Batman in terms of defining the modern blockbuster. Jaws ’ success was so profound, it changed the way movies were made and marketed. Batman’s marketing was so profound, it changed the way tentpoles would be perceived: as cash cows. Disney tried to reproduce the effect the following year with Dick Tracy , to markedly less enthusiastic response. None of this places Batman in the company of Jaws as a classic movie sold well, far from it. It just so happened to hit the spot. As Tim Burton put it, it was “ more of a cultural phenomenon than a great movie ”. It’s difficult to disagree with his verdict that the finished product (for that is what it is) is “ mainly boring ”. Now, of course, the Burton bat has been usurped by the Nolan incarnation (and soon the Snyder). They have some things in common. Both take the character seriously and favour a sombre tone, which was much more of shock to the

Twenty dwarves took turns doing handstands on the carpet.

Bugsy (1991) (SPOILERS) Bugsy is very much a Warren Beatty vanity project (aren’t they all, even the ones that don’t seem that way on the surface?), to the extent of his playing a title character a decade and a half younger than him. As such, it makes sense that producer Warren’s choice of director wouldn’t be inclined to overshadow star Warren, but the effect is to end up with a movie that, for all its considerable merits (including a script from James Toback chock full of incident), never really feels quite focussed, that it’s destined to lead anywhere, even if we know where it’s going.

Say hello to the Scream Extractor.

Monsters, Inc. (2001) (SPOILERS) I was never the greatest fan of Monsters, Inc. , even before charges began to be levelled regarding its “true” subtext. I didn’t much care for the characters, and I particularly didn’t like the way Pixar’s directors injected their own parenting/ childhood nostalgia into their plots. Something that just seems to go on with their fare ad infinitum. Which means the Pixars I preferred tended to be the Brad Bird ones. You know, the alleged objectivist. Now, though, we learn Pixar has always been about the adrenochrome, so there’s no going back…

You ever heard the saying, “Don’t rob the bank across from the diner that has the best donuts in three counties”?

2 Guns (2013) (SPOILERS) Denzel Washington is such a reliable performer, that it can get a bit boring. You end up knowing every gesture or inflection in advance, whether he’s playing a good guy or a bad guy. And his films are generally at least half decent, so you end up seeing them. Even in Flight (or perhaps especially in Flight ; just watch him chugging down that vodka) where he’s giving it his Oscar-nominatable best, he seems too familiar. I think it may be because he’s an actor who is more effective the less he does. In 2 Guns he’s not doing less, but sometimes it seems like it. That’s because the last person I’d ever expect blows him off the screen; Mark Wahlberg.

Do you know that the leading cause of death for beavers is falling trees?

The Interpreter (2005) Sydney Pollack’s final film returns to the conspiracy genre that served him well in both the 1970s ( Three Days of the Condor ) and the 1990s ( The Firm ). It also marks a return to Africa, but in a decidedly less romantic fashion than his 1985 Oscar winner. Unfortunately the result is a tepid, clichéd affair in which only the technical flourishes of its director have any merit. The film’s main claim to fame is that Universal received permission to film inside the United Nations headquarters. Accordingly, Pollack is predictably unquestioning in its admiration and respect for the organisation. It is no doubt also the reason that liberal crusader Sean Penn attached himself to what is otherwise a highly generic and non-Penn type of role. When it comes down to it, the argument rehearsed here of diplomacy over violent resolution is as banal as they come. That the UN is infallible moral arbiter of this process is never in any doubt. The cynicism

Now In Full Color, with a Happier Ending

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