Seriously though, releasing the thing opposite 200 mil+ budget DARK KNIGHT? Maybe the worst decision made by Fox that whole year, and as you know, it has feirce competition in that regard. I love spectacle and craziness (and aliens, and the first X-FILES movie) plenty, so I’m hoping in a few years folks will forget the miserable reception of I WANT TO BELIEVE and pony up a big final X-FILES movie which will complete the series and blow shit up real good. But even if that never happens I for one will always consider BELIEVE to be an odd but surprisingly fitting coda to the series.

I watched I WANT TO BELIEVE again last night with your comments in mind. Connelly’s performance was fine; the final crushing realization that he has – even knowing it was coming – was moving.

And Anderson’s performance was fantastic.

Another thing I noticed: the Bush joke is funny, but its genius is in Duchovney’s physical acting as he sort of smirks and shrugs at Scully. Tons of show history are commented on there in one brief gesture.

The balance Carter strikes between belief/disbelief, science/faith was as well done as any of the series’ episodes, but, you’re right, with way more payoff in this film. Downplaying the aliens, conspiracies and spooks opened the film to provide a series’ worth of emotional weight to the characters.

The whole film would have been better received it it was a tv special; it doesn’t deserve to have the weight of an “event” picture thrust upon it, but, like you said, kudos to Carter for having the guts to subvert the blockbuster.

SPOILER SPOILER
Jareth — To my mind, Connelly’s (last?) scene in the movie is one of the most painful I’ve seen on-screen in a long time. When we meet him, he’s this guy living with the crushing knowledge of the crimes he’s committed, stirred to some kind of life and belief again by the hope that God is giving him one last chance to save someone and redeem himself. Nope. He just gets to find out it was all his fault to begin with, and that he didn’t save anyone anyway. Connelly’s face just melts. He turns his head away and just kind of deflates. He can hardly even get out an “oh, no, oh no…” A few scenes later, we find out he’s died.

Connelly hardly crack a smile the whole way through, but you get a sense of his mounting excitement that the redemption he’s been searching for his whole adult life may be within reach (look at his near manic energy in his first scene, where he falls to the ground and starts frantically digging through the snow). His natural charisma and lively presence, even amid all that self-loathing, make him a character we can kind of like, and then at the end, they just rip all that away and leave him with nothing. That’s harsh, man, fucking hash. Man, talking about this, I still can’t believe any suit actually watched this movie before deciding to release it opposite fucking BATMAN.

As for the FEMA stuff, one of the awesome things about X-files is that the writers always had their ear to the ground for urban legends and conspiracy theories. Nowadays, we know FEMA couldn’t find their asses with both hands, but at the time there was tons of paranoia among fringe groups (who were just discovering each other via the internet) about FEMA and other government agencies. Most of the conspiracy stuff in the show comes from things which were really being discussed by these communities. Which is both cool and for some reason kind of makes the far-fetched stuff seem more grounded in reality. And, of course, plenty of people had discussed something like the pilot for LONE GUNMAN; even the government had explicit scenarios which resembled it, although of course they denied it like assholes until someone finally called them out on it. Shows like House today have teams of people who go through the news and find plot ideas; back then, the writers just needed to write to groups like MUFON (yes, they’re real) for all the material they’d need. Cool, huh?

You know to this day, 20 years later, I still say, or think that line when someone asks me “Can I ask you a question.” So in saying this I never imagined THREE O’CLOCK HIGH having an impact on me or being in my top twenty 80’s films muchless top forty – or fifty, but somehow it got into my psyche. That was an era when we used to repeat lines for months after seeing the film. FULL METAL JACKET was repeated for about a year. Now no one remembers a film the next day and people don’t repeat/mimic lines because it doesn’t stick with them. For better, or for worse, THREE O’CLOCK HIGH stuck in my head and with age, although I haven’t seen the film in years, I root for the bully.

Carter has a strange synchronicity with these things – that episode of “The Lone Gunman” with the World Trade Towers in particular gained a lot of subtext on a later viewing.

You know, it might just be that I know him as a comedian first. I think I kept expecting him to wink at the audience.

Whatever misgivings I’ve listed, I generally agree with your assessment of the film. As Vern would say, I think it’s a good one.

I also watched the first X-files movie in preparation for the second one. I found it held up really well, despite being much more of an action movie. It was a really polished script.

Alot of people either want to avoid the subject completely because that conversation got hijacked by the religious right, or said right only want their faith “reaffirmed”….not reignited. Probably why those daffy superhero movies are the only myths that get away with some of the same themes, but right under your nose, and under a secular brand. Retelling the old stories, but in their place.

Now some do escape here and there. BAD LIEUTENANT obviously. Poor Scorsese nearly got lynched for LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST, but man seeing that movie in high school probably kept me from going atheist. At least made that mythology more relatable than the cartoonish Evangelical baptist coloring books.

Funny since that was adapted by Paul Schrader, and he did the sort of theology self-examination in his underrated DOMINION. Its a cliche to have a hero brooding over a past failure, and be a drunk as a result. Schrader instead has his priest lose his faith over what effectively wasn’t a mistake during WW2, but more feeling utterly helpless about himself and his supposed “God.”

Of course most horror nerds don’t want that shit. So they piss on the idea of Skarsgård having to reconcile himself with the past. Not get over it easily, but accept it as he marches towards the temple and kick Satan’s ass.