At the Movies: Biutiful.

New AGI film finally making its way to Nastyville, with two Oscar nominations to boot. Check out some thoughts on it here.

At the movies: The X-Files: I Want to Believe

It was a dark time for fans of intrepid FBI agents Dana Scully and Fox Mulder and their television show. Arcing from underground phenomenon to cult crossover to mainstream success to entropic and protracted flameout over the course of its nine seasons, The X-Files was simply an inescapable part of pop culture in the nineties. And now, six years after the show whimpered out of existence, Mulder and Scully are back. For much of the world, currently in the midst of a recursive bout of Batmania, the question is "Why?" But after having seen The X-Files: I Want To Believe, I can gleefully report that for fans of the show and characters as well as idea-driven SciFi thrillers, the question to ask is "Why did it take this long?"

The central mystery of the film is quintessentially mysterious, gross, and creepy. We also have a psychic convicted sex offender added into the mix, as well as some stem cell research. The best part for viewers is that it requires almost no knowledge of the labyrinthine alien colonization/black oil plot that dominated 1998's X-Files: Fight the Future film, and only the slightest familiarity with the characters themselves. As a film, it's more satisying than Fight the Future, and it's also a better beginning to a new and revitalized X-Files franchise. What I Want to Believe does is rather moving; it allows us to reconnect with characters we had thought left behind to reruns and punchlines at the expense of SciFi/Horror enthusiasts, it answers a few questions and poses a few more, and it allows the foundation for something new and wonderful to come from The X-Files franchise. Even if done as straight-to-DVD releases, we could have one of these every 12-18 months and I would be ecstatic.

Time away from Mulder and Scully have allowed Anderson and Duchovny to evolve both as performers and as characters. Anderson, in particular, brings her a-game. Much has been made of recent admission that reconnecting with her iconic character has been more difficult for her than she'd imagined, but that reticence fits in with the arc of this character in this film, and its cumulative effect is devastating. There's one moment when she talks with the parents of an ill child and, for just a moment, you see the stricken mask of her Lily Bart from The House of Mirth creep slightly across her features, and the moment is as immediate as being punched in the solar plexus. Billy Connolly plays the aforementioned psychic convicted sex offender, and he can seem overly schematic at times. That said, he still adds a few remarkable moments to the proceedings, certainly taking a difficult character and imbuing him with some uneasy gravitas.

There are moments when an exchange of dialogue seems awkward or mawkish, something that sounds almost right but feels like it might could have used a precision rewrite, but those are few and far between. There's a weird surprise gay plot point, but I'm not sure what message it's actually trying to convey- whether it's merely an example of equitable treatment of characters or if it merely is aiming to toss out some monstrous gay menace. I lean more toward the former, as that interpretation contrasts with Scully's ongoing travails with caring for a child with a rare brain disease.

What The X-Files: I Want to Believe does is allow you to catch up with old friends, and even if no X-File is ever opened in the future, we're allowed an end credits cookie that offers us a moment of peaceful potential. It's a warm ending to a cold film, but we live in a much colder world. And I take from I Want to Believe's ending a sense of satisfaction and anticipation. Here's to more from Chris Carter and these characters in the future.

At the movies... Mamma Mia!

The plot is simultaneously simple ("who is the father of the bride?") and complex (three different trios of people, mistaken identities, subterfuge, possible divine intervention), pulling equal amounts of inspiration from dinner theatre revue and Greek tragedy. Sophie (Amanda Seyfried, best known as the sweetly dim Karen in Mean Girls) is getting married at the hotel her mother Donna (Meryl Streep, who seems to be having an insane amount of fun) runs on a picturesque Greek island. Having been raised without knowing the identity of her father, our plucky heroine (thanks to a purloined diary) has narrowed the object of her paternity down to one of three men: architect Sam (Pierce Brosnan), adventurer Bill (Stellan Skarsgard), and banker Harry (Colin Firth), each of whom she has invited to the wedding. It's both flimsy and overwrought, but it's as close to an immovable force of effervescence and poppy regret as one could hope for.

Mamma Mia! is certainly the most democratic of big screen musicals. One of the aspects of last year's similar jukebox musical Across The Universe that torpedoed its possible success was how it kept the Beatles' songs at a distance from the audience, tying them to sweeping social movements and operatic character arcs that at no point allowed the audience to identify with what Lennon and McCartney were saying (notable exception: "I Wanna Hold Your Hand"). In direct opposition to Julie Taymor's high-minded, high-concept approach to the Beatles, director Phyllida Lloyd approaches the Abba catalog with the gusto of a drunken karaoke night with friends and lovers past and present, and it works like gangbusters. There's very little art to be had here, other than Benny Andersson and Bjorn Ulvaeus' immortal and majestic pop songs (and let's not forget Stig Anderson, who helped out on "Honey Honey," "SOS," "Mamma Mia," and "Dancing Queen"), and the end result is a film that is lovable in its bright and frothy madness. When Christine Baranksi and Julie Walters show up as Streep's lifelong friends/band members/Greek chorus, the film has committed to a sensibility that feels like a combination family reunion/drag show fuelled by heartfelt Swedish pop and vats of stout Greek liquor.

The only serious misstep carried over from the stage show involves taking "When All Is Said and Done" (which may very well be the best pop song ever written about divorce) and giving it to Pierce Brosnan (who gives it his all but really has no business singing in public) as a happy wedding song, which runs counter to the heart of the song. But even that can be forgiven, such is the film's manic zeal and festive atmosphere.

But jettisoning "Under Attack" from the film entirely is a catastrophic mistake, and it manages to undo one of the sly achievements of the stage show, which is exposing audiences to some of Abba's lesser-known material- just witness Streep and Seyfried wringing every somber moment out of the masterful "Slipping Through My Fingers," and you'll get a feel for how powerful Andersson and Ulvaeus' work can be. Even as it is, there's a lot of pleasure and daffy fun to be had here, and I find myself gleefully recommending the film with a big, slackjawed grin on my face. It's not for everyone, but a timeless melody and Oscar winners shaking it to the hits is entertainment money well-spent.