With “The X-Files,” Chris Carter created the template for the modern science-fiction series and influenced the direction of serialized storytelling on television, which is why we’re thrilled to announce that we’ll commemorate the 20th anniversary of the show with a special closing-night screening at the fourth annual Hero Complex Film Festival. What’s more — you get to tell us which three episodes of the landmark series that detailed the exploits of intrepid agents Mulder and Scully that we’ll screen at the event. The Hero Complex Film Festival will ... [Continua a leggere]

CHRIS CARTER is not the sort of guy you'd expect to produce shadowy stories about government conspiracies and alien invasions. Even as he's hard at work finishing "The X-Files: I Want to Believe" -- a new feature film based on the landmark science-fiction franchise he masterminded in the 1990s -- he's the embodiment of a relaxed California surfer, thoughtful and easygoing rather than tense and paranoid. The deadline to deliver his cut of the film to the studio is looming, but inside a cozy Malibu residence, he's calm and deliberate, watching scenes with a critical eye and decisively di ... [Continua a leggere]

In season seven’s first stand-alone, Vince Gilligan tells the tale of a monster’s tragic eating disorder. Vince Gilligan has everyone fooled. The X-Files writer/co-executive producer best known for quirky episodes like Seasons Four’s “Small Potatoes” and Season Five’s “Bad Blood” projects an unmistakable Southern charm; in person, he is amiable, easy-going, good-natured. But lurking somewhere deep within his psyche is a villainous imp. There must be. There’s simply no other explanation for how someone so unassuming could send ... [Continua a leggere]

The Cool View Motel is not the kind of place you would expect to find outside the balmy, bustling activity of Los Angeles. A breeze rustles leaves belonging to a thick stand of trees nearby. The gravel lot shifts uncomfortably as the occasional truck rumbles over its skin. The decor is anything but trendy. The Cool View us a rustic stop somewhere in the middle of nondescript territory. Its only distinguishing feature on this mid-October evening is the remarkable sunset consuming the Western sky, an explosion of red hues that is the inadvertent result, a random passerby mentions ... [Continua a leggere]

You might say Keanu Reeves inspired the first stand alone episode of Season Six, the action packed “Drive.” “I sort of wanted to do our version of the Speed,” says writer Vince Gilligan. “[I wanted] something to do with people who couldn’t stop moving. I guess it speaks to how fast paces society is nowadays.” Fast paced is a good way to describe the episode, in which Mulder is taken hostage by a man who forces him at gun point to drive across the country. If the agent stops the car, the man dies. “I had this crazy teaser ... [Continua a leggere]

No one could have predicted that Spender, or the Cigarette-Smoking Man or even Skinner would don Nazi uniforms during Season Six, yet, that’s exactly what happened. Chris Carter’s imaginative narrative for his groundbreaking “real time” episode sends Mulder to the Bermuda Triangle where he boards a ship missing since 1939. On board, he encounters all the show’s characters — only they are not themselves but strangers from another era. The beautifully restored Queen Mary, which is also an operating hotel, provided the ideal location for the hist ... [Continua a leggere]

While driving down busy Southern California Streets, you might notice brightly colored sings sporting random nonsensical words affixed to the odd telephone poll. The markers are written in a secret code that only those well-versed in Industry Rhetoric can decipher-weird alien sounding abbreviations for film or television location shoots that transform neighborhood streets and store fronts into something more or less glamorous, depending on the day. Occasionally, between curses and head-shaking, grid locked drivers will glance across the street at the cardboard herald. But more ... [Continua a leggere]