X-Files I Want to Believe

I can't believe that I missed X-Files in the theaters this summer, but somehow I did. It even was released right near my birthday for crisssakes. Geez. Well, I soon remedied that by watching it as soon as I could get my grubby hands on the DVD release.

It. was. awesome.

Remember Star Trek: First Contact? It felt like a longer version of the TV show, but with uber-budget right? (It did to me anyway.) But then you saw Star Trek: Insurrection and you just cried a little inside? Well, X-Files I want to Believe was like the first - but without the overarching mythology banging you on the head. It reminded me so much of the Season 3 episode, Grotesque, hands-down one of my favorites, that I couldn't help but love it. Plus, I'm a shipper, so the little bits of relationship stuff mixed in there between Mulder and Scully just made me squee with happiness. (Literally, Pandabob could hear me in the other room. Squeeing. The beard thing, I couldn't help it. I clapped.)

My one complaint - it took forever to bring in Skinner. I love Skinner.

The plot in brief is this: Scully gets an unexpected visit from an FBI guy - they need Mulder's help. All is forgiven. They have this psychic, and for some reason the FBI wants Mulder to come in and verify what he is saying is true. And FBI agent's life is on the line; she's missing and it looks like there's a serial killer on the loose. So of course, Mulder and Scully some in to save the day. It gets dark; it gets creepy; it gets gross; Scully gets sassy. (Yes. I know. It was AWESOME.)

I don't want to say anymore than that because I don't want to spoil too much. Long story short (too late!), if you liked the show you'll love the movie. Unless you were one of those who never wanted Mulder & Scully to get together; in that case, stay away. Also stay for the credits. On the DVD they have candids of the cast & crew throughout.

Rating: 5 stars. Lets' see: the beard thing won me over. The grossness was spot on. What did this make me do? It made me want to pull out my DVDs and start watching from Season 1 on again, because I want the show back so much. I've loved a lot of TV in my time, but X-Files had me at Hello and I just never stopped loving it, even the last season.

X-Files Redux

Yesterday I caught up on this new show everyone has been telling me about. Fringe. It looked intriguing in the previews, but part of me said, enh. Looks like Alias (which I never really got into no matter how hard I tried) married The Eleventh Hour (which I did get into, the British version of course, and dang it I forgot to DVR the premiere of the US version last night), had a side affair with Lost and birthed the The X-Files all over again. Which yeah, I was pretty much right.

Which doesn't mean I am not totally, so much, OMG, Srsly in love with it. Cause I am.

I am so ashamed of myself. Where's my loyalty? I loved the X-Files. I even watched the horrid last two seasons. I've watched every single episode at least twice. I own them all on DVD. (The original DVD printings I might add, before they got so damn cheap.)

I'm sorry, Mulder & Scully. Really, I love Fringe and its adorable wide-eyed, expressionless Agent Olivia (I even love her name!) and baby-sitting Pacey in a completely different way than I love you.

Promise.

Pinky Swear.

Ah vacation...

Vacation - the days where you can read a million books, take a million pictures, relax...

Well, I didn't quite get a million books read, and maybe not a million pictures, but I did read a whole heck of a bunch (I was only gone a week or so) and took so many pictures it's going to take me weeks of cropping, etc., before I can get them all posted.

I took about twice as many books as I actually read on my trip last week, which is pretty normal. My goal was to take things I wanted to read, even if I had read them before many times. I took some new stuff too, but I took some old favorites to revisit because I can never seem to convince myself to re-read things when it's "regular" reading.

What I read while I was gone:

• Bare Bones by Kathy Reichs - I picked these up because I love Bones. While the characters in the book are quite different from the TV Show, I still enjoy the dual mystery and forensics detailed in this series. I didn't think this was nearly as good as some of the former entries in the Temperance Brennan series of books. Here Dr. Brennan is trying to take a vacation with the hunky cop from Canada, but instead she find a big cache of bones that might be bear and might have some human there too. The investigation, death threats, and gore ensues. There's a lot of detail about endangered species here and you can't help but think that it's a topic close to Ms. Reichs' heart. I'd recommend it if you like forensics and want a pretty detailed look at the science.
  
• The Dispatch by Bentley Little - I like Bentley Little. His books are like horror cotton candy. They are tasty, fun, easy to eat up, but sometimes they give you a stomach ache after. This one is a bout a guy who writes letters. The letters he writes end up making things happen, and someone notices and wants to use him for something not so ethical. It's not his best work. I'd recommend The Walking or The Collection (short stories) first.
• The Maul and The Pear Tree by P. D. James and T. A. Critchley - A non-fiction work about the Ratcliffe Highway murders that took place in the early/mid 1800's. The book was very thoroughly researched, but the story felt sort of dry. Not nearly as engrossing as P.D. James' mystery stories. It's nice on a completist's perspective to have read this too, but I think I'll stick to her fiction from now on.
• The Mummy : or Ramses the Damned by Anne Rice - I can't help it. I love this book. Always have, always will. Julie's dad dig's up Ramses' tomb, only to discover he's an immortal. An immortal who fell for Cleopatra. Chaos ensues. Romance blooms. Things blow up and people die. Seriously, it's not Pulitzer Prize material, but I love it anyway. It's my favorite Anne Rice book, ever.
• No Escape by Heather Lowell - It's a romance/thriller/mystery. I know. So sue me.
  
• Sunshine by Robin McKinley - Robin McKinley, one of my favorite authors of all time, writes a vampire novel. It's an interesting take - Rae, nicknamed Sunshine, likes to bake things. She's the Queen of Cinnamon rolls. She wants to just do that, but when some vampires kidnap her, she remembers what her Grandmother taught her - how to transmute objects. When she decides to save the life of Con, the vampire chained to the wall (she's supposed to be his lunch but he won't eat her), her life will never be the same. What I like about this book is that Con isn't a sympathetic, romantic vampire, at least not that much, and definitely not for most of the book. He's flawed, not really all that handsome, and Rae doesn't really find him attractive. In fact, she thinks something is very wrong with her for even helping him. I've read this before, and I picked it up again because of my sister-in-law getting me hooked on all of these Sookie Stackhouse vampire novels and those Twilight books. This one was much more complex and a completely different voice. I highly recommend it - and please Ms. McKinley, write the darn sequel.
  

Coupling

Steve: You bring these things into our homes. They sit on our chairs. They watch our televisions. Now, I just need to know, on behalf of all men everywhere, I just need to ask, please... What are they for? I mean, look at them! Look at the chubby little bastards! Just sitting around everywhere! What are they, pets for chairs? 

[to shop assistants] 

Steve: Come on, you sell them. What are they for? 

Junior Shop Assistant: Well... 

Senior Shop Assistant: You sit on them. 

Steve: Ah! Ha ha ha! You see, that's where you're wrong! Nobody sits on them. Okay, watch this. Here's the cushion. I'm putting it on the sofa. Now watch me. I'm stting down. And what do I do on my final approach? I - oh! - move the cushion! You see? It's not involved! It's not part of the whole sitting process. It just lies there. It's fat litter! It's a sofa parasite!

I watched Coupling at first under duress. We have these friends who said, oh, you’ll love it. It’s hilarious. I thought, isn’t it a British “Friends”? The first episode didn’t impress me much, but I kept watching, and I ended up laughing my ass off for 3 seasons.

Coupling is all about a group of 6 friends. You have Steve & Susan, who start dating at the beginning of Season 1. They bring along their friends Patrick (who used to date Susan and is a real ladies’ man), Sally (Susan’s best friend who is completely obsessed with getting old), Jane (Steve’s ex who just can’t believe that Steve broke up with her), and Jeffrey (Steve’s best friend who is completely inane when it comes to the opposite sex). The show follows their swapping and pairings and dates and constant talks about sex. It’s really quite funny.

The best parts of the show, to me, are the all of a sudden rants that Steve ends up having. He bottles things up and then BAM - enter the sofa cushion conversation that I quoted above. That’s the episode that had me in tears, literally laughing and bawling because I have had that conversation with Pandabob, only he never involved Daleks. That’s the episode that now has my parents watching Coupling too. I was watching it on my laptop one night up at the condo in Red River and they couldn't figure out why I was laughing so damn hard.

Coupling is definitely not a British Friends. In fact, I never liked Friends. Coupling is funny in the way Friends should have been. My only caveat is that Season 3 isn’t as funny – Jeffrey leaves the show and is replaced by Oliver, who is just as hapless but somehow not as funny. Jeffery just gets himself into these situations that are just so hapless and impossible. 

Rating: 4 Purrs – Coupling isn’t Black Books (which I will HEART forever because of ‘Popsicle! Popsicle!”) but it’s pretty damn funny.

I'm still here, but I'm watching my TIVO.

I know, I know. I have been lazy. Blame it on Chiller, my lovely new horror channel on DirecTV. They have Alfred Hitchcock Presents, Freddy's Nightmares, Friday the 13th The Series, and The Night Gallery for cris'sakes. How am I suppossed to do anything else?

Miracles (Cancelled TV Show with Skeet Ulrich)

Miracles is a cancelled TV show from 2003, and in my opinion it was cancelled way too soon. The show had a good first season, and showed real potential for a second season.

Miracles centers around the story of Paul Callan (Skeet Ulrich), who is a young man raised in an orphanage who investigates supposed miracles for the Catholic Church. When he witness what he sees as a real miracle, and the leaders of the church ignore his report, he resigns and begins working for Sodalitas Quaerito, a group who investigate weird happenings and supposed miracles. Avla Keel (Angus MacFadyen) leads the group, and plays a skeptic to Paul’s religious beliefs. Evelyn Santos (Marisa Ramirez) is a former cop who helps the two in their investigations.

During the season, you get good character development on all three main characters. You have “monster of the week” type episodes, plus an overlying story arc that involves Paul trying to find out who his family was and why he was the one person to see a certain message in the first episode. The most memorable episodes were of course, the pilot (some great imagery there, and stunts), plus:

• “The Friendly Skies” has great moments with the sub characters, and delves deeply into Paul’s nature.


• “Hand of God” continues the underlying story arc of Paul’s true parentage and potential.


• “You are my sunshine” is a great ghost story.


• “Mother’s Daughter” has Maggie Grace from Lost as a young Amish girl who becomes possessed by the soul of a girl long dead.


• “Paul is Dead” is a great season ender, with the appropriate cliffhanger. Unfortunately, we will never know the truth about Paul because of shortsighted TV execs.

Miracles is a good X-Files type show. It’s a pity they cancelled it after six episodes. It could have been a great show with a little time.