December 26, 2008

New Book: Wanting to Believe


In Wanting to Believe, acclaimed science-fiction writer Robert Shearman critiques and examines the whole of Chris Carter's "X-Files" universe, including the spin-off series "Millennium" and "The Lone Gunmen." As such, this is one of --- if not the only --- guide of its kind to cover all 13 seasons of Carter's masterwork.

With this unauthorized guidebook, "X-Files" fans will be able to reevaluate Carter's TV series with Shearman (World Fantasy Award winner, Hugo Award nominee, renowned playwright, writer on the new "Doctor Who" series and all-around nice guy) as he diligently comments upon all 282 "X-Files"-related episodes (and the two motion pictures), which form one of the most notable TV works of the 1990s --- and is every bit as enjoyable today.

Armed with "Wanting to Believe," you won't just find yourself mulling over Shearman's insights and opinions about "The X-Files" --- you'll want to pull your DVDs and re-watch this amazing and impressive series for yoursel

Wanting to Believe
A Critical Guide to The X-Files, Millennium and The Lone Gunmen

by Robert Shearman





December 19, 2008

X-Files comic book #5

People have gone missing in the Badlands for centuries. Now, a fresh spate of disappearances is linked to the possible serial killer “Dante,” who claims he is inspired by demons from hell. While Scully assumes the suspect is either lying or deranged, Mulder follows legends of the Hollow Earth to a labyrinth of subterranean tunnels – just as Dante escapes custody and heads for home.

Written by Doug Moench; Art & Cover by Brian Denham. 32pg. - Color - $3.50 US - On Sale March 18, 2009

December 15, 2008

Breaking Bad News

Stephen King Rates Breaking Bad as the Best

What's the best series on TV? According to Stephen King, it's Vince Gilligan's Breaking Bad. In this week's Entertainment Weekly, the horror icon says, "You wouldn't think a story about a high school teacher who makes crank so his cancer treatments don't bankrupt his family could be funny, but it is. And suspenseful. And terrifying. If you missed the first season, hurry and catch up."

Breaking Bad Pilot Is Best TV Episode of '08, Says iTunes

Breaking Bad's pilot has been named the best episode in a dramatic series on Apple's iTunes 2008 list. The year-end review of movies, television shows, audiobooks, podcasts, iPhone applications features the most purchased items this year, plus "best of" selections in several genres.

Bryan Cranston's performance in the "compelling" Breaking Bad is described as "less a guilty pleasure than a tragic look at the unexpected choices we have to make to support our families. Desperate measures, indeed."

Breaking Bad Lands Three WGA Nominations

In its freshman year, Breaking Bad has garnered three nominations from the Writers Guild of America -- one for best new series and and two for best episode.

For new series, the drama -- written by Vince Gilligan, Peter Gould, Patty Lin and George Mastras -- is up against Fox's Fringe, ABC's Life on Mars and HBO's In Treatment and True Blood.

Breaking Bad's pilot episode, penned by Gilligan, and "Gray Matter," penned by Lin, are competing for best episode with episodes of Fox's House, USA's Burn Notice, ABC's Eli Stone and Showtime's Dexter.

The 2009 Writers Guild Awards ceremony will take place on February 7, 2009.

Breaking Bad Wins AFI and Satellite Awards

Awards season is steaming ahead, and Breaking Bad continues to pile on the plaudits.

The American Film Institute recognized the drama as one of the best TV programs of the year, placing Breaking Bad in good company with In Treatment, John Adams, Life, Lost, The Office, Recount, The Shield, The Wire and AMC's other original series, Mad Men.

Not to be outdone, the International Press Academy gave Breaking Bad's star, Emmy winner Bryan Cranston, a Satellite Award for best actor in a dramatic series. Cranston beat out In Treatment's Gabriel Byrne, Dexter's Michael C. Hall, Doctor Who's David Tennant, Brotherhood's Jason Isaacs and Mad Men's Jon Hamm for this prestigious award.

Source: Official Breaking Bad Blog

December 13, 2008

Back To Frank Black: Lance Henriksen's exclusive interview

BacktoFrankBlack.com was thrilled when Frank Black himself, Lance Henriksen, offered an exclusive interview on behalf of the campaign. In this first part of the interview, Lance talks about Millennium, its potential future and the work that went into creating Frank Black.

Read full interview HERE and visit BackToFrankBlack.com to learn more about the global campaign to bring back Frank Black!

X-Files comic book #2 preview

Download X-Files #2 comic book preview HERE.

Mulder and Scully race to uncover the truth about the apparent suicide of a government scientist. All evidence points to it being nothing more than a case of one man choosing to end his own life, but Mulder is convinced the evidence isn't revealing everything. For Agent Fox Mulder, uncovering the truth is literally a case of life or death.

Written by Frank Spotnitz; Art by Brian Denham; Cover by Tony Shasteen

The X-Files #2 on Sale December 17, 2008.

December 11, 2008

We Talk X-Files with Duchovny

We recently had a chance to sit down with X-Files and Californication star David Duchovny to chat about his latest venture into the world of Mulder and Scully as X-Files: I Want to Believe hits Blu-ray and DVD. Check out the interview below for some teasing tidbits on a possible third X-Files film and the eventual third season of Californication.

IGN: Was it difficult coming back into the role after so long away?

DUCHOVNY: Because there were so many people who were involved from the beginning – specifically Chris Carter and Gillian Anderson and Frank Spotnitz – we all had developed a shorthand. I think if we did it twenty years from now, we would have stepped into it in the same kind of way. We all know how to communicate to each other how and when it's working and what we want to do with a particular moment. Having said that, the first day on set of any movie is stange and unnatural. With this one, it was odd because there was a sense of d?j? vu and a sense of not wanting to make a mockery of what we've done before and honor it and expand it.

IGN: Was the chemistry with Gillian there from the start, or did it take some time to get back up to speed with the characters?

DUCHOVNY: How many hours of Mulder do we have? A couple hundred? To be able to work on filling up the six years in between, or to be able to create a new kind of relationship between the two characters was part of what made it interesting...It was this idea of trying to take them into another place in their lives. Just as we all age, I thought it would be interesting to allow these characters to grow and not set them in stone…Both Gillian and I have gotten so much more confident, certainly since the first year of the show and especially since it ended. We've done so many other things and stretched in other ways, aside from the shorthand that we have, there was this added excitement of, "Wow, we're both doing very, very different things here."


IGN: To your point of having hundreds of hours spent with Mulder…When you play a character that much and for that long is there ever a malaise that sets in? Are you as invested in the character and the mythology as much today as you were when it began?

DUCHOVNY: I'm just as invested, but in a different way. I'm invested in the evolution of the concepts and the characters, but it's not a matter of life and death to me – it's not even a matter of career – but it's interesting to grow the characters and their relationships over a span of years. That's an interesting artistic investment. Malaise, yes, malaise would set in during the course of the show, which I think is inevitable when you do any long-running show. Especially one as time-intensive as the X-Files…But coming back after six years, everybody was happy to be there. Nobody was bitching like we used to bitch. It was only gonna take ten weeks, instead of ten months.

IGN: It's rare that a TV show ever comes back after its final episode, but science and culture have changed considerably since the X-Files went off the air. Could you ever envision returning with a revamped version of the show, especially considering that the original series finale left so much open?

DUCHOVNY: With me in it? No, probably not…For me to take it back to the serious, series grind of the ten-month, twenty-two episode structure, I just can't imagine in this stage of my career or my life, committing that kind of time and energy away from my family. I definitely see a place for the show. I can see the Next Generation. Maybe they can come visit me every now and then and I could give them some sage advice, but I'd love to just continue to do an X-Files movie every now and then.

IGN: What were your thoughts on coming back without a mythology story? And do you feel it's necessary, if there's a third film, to return to that aspect of the show?

DUCHOVNY: I think that's really the bread and butter of the show. The reasoning behind not making this particular film a part of the mythology was to try not to alienate people who didn't know the show…I don't think they thought they could just count on people knowing enough about it to want to come and see. They really had to think, "How do we make a movie that stands alone, where you don't need to know too much to enjoy it?" The first way to alienate people is to put aliens in it. Then they're gonna think, "Oh, I gotta know stuff; I've gotta study." But I think what we realized from the performance of this movie, which was disappointing to us, certainly…The positive thing that we learned was, first, don't open the week after Batman, and secondly, that the core audience is actually there. And if we had trouble, it was in reaching a new audience…But it was always the case that we'd go back and do some alien stuff, and I think that the performance of this movie showed that we still have a core audience that's interested in that story.

IGN: If you did go back to the mythology, especially in light of the alien envasion plotline, do you ever fear that it might give way too much to hardcore science-fiction, or do you think it's possible to still keep the smaller, conspiratorial nature of the show?

DUCHOVNY: I think that there's certainly ways for Chris and Frank to figure that out. That might be the fun problem, the limitation set on the next idea, which is always a drag at first but actually provides a spurt of creativity. The real problem will be competing ideas that have been influence by X-Files. Everybody's gonna want a 2012 alien movie!

IGN: Can you talk a bit about the future of Californication? It's such an intimate show that I would imagine it's difficult to find new situations and circumstances to keep the characters fresh, especially with the on-again-off-again relationship between Hank and Karen. Any hints about where the show is headed in its next season?

DUCHOVNY: I don't know! Tom Kapinos, who is solely the driving story-force, would have just started writing yesterday. I know he has some ideas that he hasn't shared with me about where it's gonna go. I've always said, "This is where I want it to end." That's why the first season ended where it did. The nature of cable, you don't know whether you're picked up until long after you stop. And both Tom and I are attached to an ending that we had at the same time, very synchronistic. The first season ended with the happy ending because we didn't know. Every season has to be the last, which is unfortunate, but I have no clue what the next year will be like. But you'll have some clue after the last episode. I wouldn't tell you if I knew, but thankfully, I don't know!

Source: IGN.com

Duchovny Still Believes In X-Files

The X-Files: I Want To Believe didn't do blockbuster box office, but star David Duchovny still wants to revisit the role of former FBI agent Fox Mulder, whom he refers to as "mine." He adds that he wants to believe that The X-Files could live on in a spinoff TV series.

The movie--the second based on the long-running Fox TV series--is out now on DVD, and it is hoped it finds the audience that eluded it in movie theaters over the summer.

That includes Duchovny himself, who confessed that he never saw the film on a big screen. "It's not a special-effects movie," he says. "It kind of was coming out in a time when you expected it to be--in the summer. To me, it was more a fall movie."

Duchovny adds: "It's a beautiful-looking movie. The location, the glow of the snow and the eeriness of that part of it, I think that looks great on the big screen. Everything looks better on the big screen, but I think that, yeah, it's less of a popcorn movie than it is a fall movie, ... for lack of a better term."

Duchovny, who is undeniably an SF icon, says that he's not looking for any more fantastical roles. "I don't feel a need to score in any sci-fi movie or television show for the rest of my life," he says. "I think that we can check that one off for me. But I don't choose genres. I choose characters, so I would never rule out a science fiction movie just because it was the genre. If it had a character or a story that I thought was really interesting, I would do it."

As for The X-Files, Duchovny says, "I never thought of The X-Files as science fiction. I always thought of it as playing this character in this world. The world was recognizable to me. It wasn't The Jetsons. It was present time. You couldn't fly. You couldn't transport our bodies over a teleport and all that stuff, so it was the real world, and it didn't feel like sci-fi to me." Following is an edited version of the rest of SCI FI Wire's interview with Duchovny.

Do you suppose that the Fox Mulder character could somehow endure along the lines of a Sherlock Holmes or a James Bond? Do you think that other actors could play him, and how would you like to see him go in the future?

Duchovny: I'm sure that someone else could play him, but I'd like to play him for a little while longer. I certainly think it's a pretty good idea to try to make another X-Files-oriented show on television. I wouldn't be an actor in it, but I've always thought it was a great plan, but I would like to continue on as a movie serial. As far as what actors? ... I'm not ready to go out to pasture just yet.

What is it about Mulder that keeps you coming back?

Duchovny: He's mine. I feel protective of him and of it and of all of us. It was the first real, real success of my career and will always be a cornerstone of my life in many ways, the creative endeavor it is. I feel protective of the character and of the show in many ways, and I'm proud of it. I think that it can expand and grow, and .. I find that we have bonds.

I guess Indiana Jones gets aged, but it remains the same movie even though he's aging. Bond doesn't age, and I find that a little less interesting, at least for me. I'm not just saying this because I would like to keep doing it, but I always to talk to [X-Files creator] Chris [Carter] about how fascinating today it would be to take this guy from his early 30s and let's take him into his mid-50s, late-50s. Maybe nobody wants to see 60-year-old Fox Mulder, but we can grow him. We can take him through life's hardships and changes. It doesn't have to be this cartoon where nothing changes. You can actually form the flow of this movie and the expanse of this show to embrace actual passage of time and what that does to a person and relationships. To me, that's interesting as an actor and as a person. As an intellectually based character, you don't give a damn what he looks like.

Since The X-Files: I Want to Believe may not have been the huge blockbuster that everyone was hoping for, we'd like to know: What is your own measure of success for the movie?

Duchovny: I guess it's always the first time I see the movie. What's my feeling when I come out? I always felt like the subject matter of this particular movie was limiting. It was dark, and it wasn't going. I mean, it could always bust out and become something huge, but as you recall, Batman was just suffocating everything at the time. Even so, it was also a $29.9 million dollar movie competing during the summer. It had some stuff going against it in terms of me thinking it was going to break out. I didn't think that it actually would. It was very dark. The subject matter was limiting in that way. Even though I would hope any movie I do would do the best business it can, that was never going to be a measure of this particular film.

I've only seen it one time, and I was sitting in Chris' editing room. I watched it on a little screen. I guess I missed the chance to see it on the big screen, and that's too bad, but when I left that initial screening at Chris' house, the film was pretty much almost done except for some special effects. I just felt like it was really strong and kind of a strangely moving piece of work. Still dark, and still I thought limited, but the way that the movie performed did not surprise me so much, and I think that if we do get a chance to do another one, ... what I always really liked about the show was that it had a dark vision, but at the heart of it being driven by Mulder was this real optimism or wonder or sense of belief, and then it would kind of open out. Most of the best shows that we did would open out into real wonder at the end if only because you didn't have an answer, which was the mystery of it, but the wonder.

Mulder's quest, to me, is a very positive one. If we get a chance to do another one, I think because in this movie Mulder kept getting reinvigorated, so Mulder was in a down place for much of this film, he wasn't driving the way he drives, the way he drove everything before that. In a way, the nature of how we had to get back into the show, which was to take the guy out of his job, also deprived the movie of some optimism and wonder and enlightenment that occurs when you've got this unhinged guy trying to prove wonderful crazy things.

Source: SciFi.com

December 02, 2008

Some news about "Gabrielle Union Project"

Frank Spotnitz responded about the "Gabrielle Union Project" in his blog:

"I'm still working on the script, so no more news as yet."

Source: http://www.biglight.com/blog/2008/12/gabri...on-project.html