Am I seriously nominating an old-school, low-budget submarine thriller, with Ed Harris and David Duchovny playing Russians, as my favorite movie of the week? I know it’s a little eccentric, but sure I am. For one thing, I’ve already aired my objections to Park Chan-wook’s unintentionally campy Goth-drama “Stoker,” which is no doubt a better film on various technical and theoretical levels but also felt fundamentally empty. But even given its overly familiar story about a Soviet sub going rogue at a moment of heightened Cold War tension, writer-director Todd Robins ... [Continua a leggere]

It’s hard to say if “The X-Files: I Want to Believe” is exactly the movie fans of the revered series — which aired from 1993 to 2002 — are hoping for. The relatively straightforward plot involves only minor trickery, and you don’t need much previous knowledge of the “X-Files” universe to follow it. The director, Chris Carter, the creator of the original show, has dispensed with the convoluted mythology that bogged down the show in the last third of its run. “I Want to Believe” comes off like a solid — if not great — episod ... [Continua a leggere]

In this summer of Dark Knights and Hellboys and Iron Men, it's refreshing to be reminded -- as we will be this weekend, with the opening of "The-X-Files: I Want to Believe" -- that not so long ago, there was a science fiction series with a woman at its core, a heroine whose major goals were more about disproving the existence of extraterrestrial life than marrying Big, a chick who spent more time chasing fluke worms down toilets than trying on shoes. I was crazy about "The X-Files," Fox's pre-9/11 ode to trusting no one. I taped every episode. I watched many of them repeatedly. I borrowed fri ... [Continua a leggere]