The X-Files : Season 7

June 13, 2013 - Roshan

This season is significant as it was the last season which featured David Duchovny as a regular main character. He would return in later seasons as an intermittent main character. As we start the season Walter Skinner and Michael Kritschgau work desperately to attempt to discover what is wrong with Fox Mulder, who is imprisoned by his own frenetic brain activity, but they are unaware of Agent Diana Fowley’s duplicity. In the meanwhile, Dana Scully is hunting for an ancient artifact in Africa. She finds something that looks like a spaceship buried under the shoreline off the Côte d’Ivoire coast. The object may prove that life originated elsewhere, and all religion is based on the Navajo contact with alien life. Unsuccessful, Scully returns from Africa to revisit Mulder in Washington, D.C., but instead she finds out that he has disappeared. She contacts Kritschgau and Skinner to find her partner. The Smoking Man has taken Mulder to a place where all his problems seem to have disappeared. Fowley helps Scully locate Mulder, which leads to her death at the hands of The Smoking Man.

In an episode told from the point-of-view of the “monster”, a fast-food employee (great guest role by Chad Donella) with unusual cravings becomes the focus of an FBI investigation. The victims appear with no brain and a suction hole in the forehead. An associate of the Millennium Group, which believes the apocalypse will happen on the new year of 2000, resurrects the dead for use in the bringing about of the apocalypse, and Mulder and Scully have to ask the help of criminal profiler Frank Black (Lance Henriksen), a man who has former experience with the shadowy group. When a school student becomes the prime suspect in the bizarre murder of a police officer, Mulder and Scully are sent to investigate. They discover that the boy and a couple of friends have been playing with the ability to accelerate their movements to a frequency the human eye can’t perceive. After being thrown off a building and surviving, Henry Weems, who appears to be the luckiest man in the world, attracts the attention of Mulder and Scully. But, if he is so lucky, why is he on the run from the mob, and why is everyone around him so unlucky? Reverend Orison releases Donnie Pfaster, Scully’s former kidnapper, as seen in the second season episode “Irresistible”, from jail in the hopes of passing judgment on him. What he discovers instead is that he has released pure evil, and it’s headed for Scully. One of the best episodes is The Amazing Maleeni, a small-time magician, performs an amazing feat to impress a heckler—he turns his head 360 degrees. So when he is later found without a head at all, Mulder and Scully arrive on the case and discover an angry ex-con, an unimpressed rival, and Maleeni’s twin brother all seem to have something to do with the plan to rob a major bank.

When a small town church is the site of a number of ritualistic-like murders, fingers are pointed to the Church of God with Signs and Wonders, a church where the Bible is read literally, and punishment is dealt deftly. But soon the agents realize that the difference between the peaceful religious and the fanatics may not be very much at all. While investigating the bizarre disappearance of a young girl from her home, Mulder becomes obsessed with a number of children who have vanished in similar ways. Scully’s fears that he is emotionally involved due to his sister’s disappearance 27 years earlier are heightened when Mulder’s mother dies, apparently of suicide. As Mulder is forced to accept that his mother’s death was by her own hand, he is led by a man whose son disappeared years earlier to another truth—that his sister may be among the souls taken by ‘walk-ins’, saving the souls of children doomed to live unhappy lives. Together, they embark on a journey that will reveal to Mulder the truth about his sister’s disappearance. A filming of an episode of COPS gets in the way of the collaborative effort between the FBI and the local police department. Mulder later finds out that the monster feeds on fear. While Mulder embraces the publicity, Scully is not so sure of it. The episode was filmed as if it was an authentic episode of the TV series COPS. The Lone Gunmen summon Mulder and Scully to the headquarters of a video game design company when the new virtual-reality game, which the Gunmen helped design, is taken over by a bizarre female computer character whose power is much more than virtual. After a prominent doctor discovers his father-in-law dead and the word “Theef” written on the wall in blood, Mulder suspects hexcraft may be the source of threats against the doctor’s family. After a young boy with cancer, whose parents do not believe in medical treatment because it is against God’s will, recovers miraculously, Scully is intrigued. What she soon discovers is that his cure is not miraculous, but scientific. Eager, if wary, to learn of the truth behind his secrets, Scully agrees to travel with the Cigarette Smoking Man to get the cure to all mankind’s diseases.

Mulder investigates what appears to be a missing case of a woman from a small town, but soon turns out to be a murder by a spirit summoned from the underworld. Scully, meanwhile, must endure an uncomfortable stakeout. While Mulder is away in England, Scully is led by coincidences, chance, fate and possibly a higher power to a married man with whom she had an affair during medical school, and a look at the life she didn’t choose, forcing her to make choices about her future. While protecting a man due to testify against the Morley cigarette company, Skinner is horrified when the witness dies mysteriously. What the agents soon discover is that a new brand of cigarette has a dangerous secret. An entrepreneurial Hollywood producer and college friend of Skinner picks up the idea for a film based on the X-Files division, however the agents find that the level of realism in their fictional portrayal is somewhat questionable. Mulder and Scully cross paths with a pair of doppelgangers whose close proximity yields unlimited mayhem. Splitting up in two, the agent tries to find out “why” and “what” they are doing. Mulder and Scully’s encounter with a man and his handicapped brother leads them to an indifferent genie whose willingness to grant wishes belies a deeper motive. Mulder and Scully return to the site of their first investigation together when a series of abductions take place. However, Scully’s failing health, and Mulder’s concern that she is in danger, cause him to take her off the case. Meanwhile, the Cigarette-Smoking Man—on his deathbed—reunites with Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden) and Krycek in an attempt to revive the project.

At the end of the season Mulder is abducted with a group of previous abductees while a stunned Skinner witnesses the UFO’s departure. With Marita holding back his assistant, Krycek wheels the Smoking Man out of the room and throws him down a flight of stairs, presumably killing him. After being hospitalized, Scully tells Skinner that, although she cannot understand it — and that it is important that he keep it secret — she is pregnant.

Would You Take The Pill?

June 13, 2013June 20, 2013 - Roshan

If you could get all the nutrition you needed in a day with a pill — no worrying about what to eat, no food preparation — would you do it?

I’ve seen science fiction concepts of futuristic worlds in which most meals are package little pills or something similarly small like a cube and that has the taste & feeling of different meals. So in effect you could take a pill that is labelled “Steak & veggies” and once you swallow the pill you feel like you have eaten a steak & veggies plate and you feel full but you don’t the taste or texture or the pleasure in touching, smelling, eating, chewing and feeling the food go down into your stomach. What’s the point of that? Just nutrition isn’t everything.

Now, I like the Star Trek concept of food & drink replicators for everybody in which different (and I mean different; all kinds of food that you can imagine and not just Earth food but from most alien cultures that humans have contact with) dishes & drinks are available at the command and the rudimentary material is converted into the desired food & drink with the appropriate taste, texture, feel and smell. So you want a lasagna or a pizza? Just say out what you want into the replicator. You want a particular beer style? Presto! You want some fruits? Done! You want a 6 course meal of the most stylishly prepared foods? No problem! Hunger solved and no time wasted in preparation. However there is an option in the replicators to only get you the ingredients and meat, vegetables and other stuff on command – you can do the cooking yourself if you so wish to! Isn’t that nice, only when you really want to cook do you have to!

That replicator sounds more & more like something we all can use. And better than wasting the time needed to prepare or not having the right ingredients, them replicators can end world hunger!

Batman & Batman Returns

June 13, 2013June 13, 2013 - Roshan

Firmly entrenched in the gloom & doom style of the rebooted Batman series created by Chris Nolan, one forgets that there was a previous Batman film franchise from 1989-1997 with 4 movies (and 3 different actors portraying the costumed hero). I chose to rewatch the 4 movies recently as I got the 4 movies in one pack dvds. I hadn’t seen the movies in quite a while, especially the 1st 2 movies. So a few days ago, I watched the first two movies back to back.

Batman was a hugely hyped 1989 release directed by Tim Burton and starring Michael Keaton as the role of Bruce Wayne / Batman with Jack Nickolson as the Joker, Kim Basinger, Robert Wuhl, Michael Gough, Pat Hingle, Billy Dee Williams, and Jack Palance. I first watched this film back in 1990 during the football World Cup with my sister and a cousin in his house. I must have seen it once more 2 years later but haven’t seen it since. My experiences this time around were a lot less exciting, compared to the expectations of 1989-90 and as a 13 year old. Anyways, this movie focuses a lot on the Joker and how he originated. Gotham City is controlled by crime boss Carl Grissom (Palance). Despite the best efforts of newly-elected district attorney Harvey Dent (Billy Dee Williams) and police commissioner James Gordon (Pat Hingle), the Gotham City Police Department remains corrupt. Billionaire Bruce Wayne, having seen his parents being killed by a criminal, as a young boy, dedicates his life to fighting crime as a form of seeking vengence for his parents’ deaths. When Grissom’s second in command, Jack Napier is sent to raid the Axis Chemicals factory, it is actually a setup by the boss to take revenge for Jack’s affair with Grissom’s mistress. The police are tipped off and there is a shoot out at the plant in the midst of which Batman arrives and helps to take out Napier’s gang. Napier shoots at Batman, who deflects the bullet back at the gangster with the help of his metal enforced suit and it hits Napier.

Jack is hurt and trips into a vat of chemicals, despite Batman trying to save him. He is presumed dead but infact survives although he is highly deformed and a botched plastic surgery leaves him with chalk white skin, red lips, green hair, and a permanent maniacal grin. He is driven insane by looking at his own reflection and names himself as the Joker and goes to get his revenge. First he kills his former boss and takes over his empire, tormenting the city. As this is happening, Bruce has started a romance with famed photographic journalist Vicki Vale (Bassinger) who had come to Gotham to begin investigating the rumors of a shadowy vigilante figure dressed as a bat who has been fighting criminals throughout the city, along with resident journalist Alexander Knox. The Joker, who has launched his gas & also spikes everday household chemicals which makes people laugh incessently, sees Vicki and becomes obsessed with her. During an encounter with the Joker, Batman recognizes him for the criminal who killed his parents and reveals his identity to Vicki. At the final battle between the Joker & Batman, after our hero foils the Joker’s latest plans the mad gangster falls to his death from the top of a high cathedral. At the end of the movie Batman promises to come to the city’s aid whenever needed and the bat signal is installed.

Three years later in 1992 the first sequel was released once again directed by Burton and with Keaton returning as Batman. The film introduces the characters of Max Shreck (Christopher Walken), a business tycoon who teams up with the Penguin (Danny DeVito) to take over Gotham City, as well as the character of Catwoman (Michelle Pfeiffer).

A deformed baby is dropped into the sewers by his wealthy parents in Gotham City where it finds it’s way to a flock of penguins and is raised there. 33 years later the child, Oswald Cobblepot comes back to the surface as a criminal known as the Penguin and kidnaps the millionaire industrialist Max Shreck. Cobblepot blackmails Shreck into helping him leave the sewers to become part of Gotham’s elite, as he is aware of Max’s illegal dealings. They arrange to have the mayor’s child to be kidnapped so Oswald can “save” him, thus becoming a media sensation and beloved figure. Selina Kyle, Shreck’s clumsy secretary, who had met Bruce Wayne during a meeting that her boss had with him, just happens to see incriminating documents that Shreck has about stealing the city’s power. When Shreck sees this, he pushes her off the building window many stories up and leaves her for dead but through some means (not explained) she is revived by strays cats and is transformed into a much more confident, sexually charged woman. She reinvents herself as Catwoman, a catsuit-clad burglar dedicated to getting revenge on her boss. Schreck meanwhile goes about his scheme to depose the current mayor and elect the Penguin in his place, in order to cement his control over the city and complete his power plant project, while the Penguin’s gang of circus freaks go about creating mayhem in the city.

Bruce, stunned by the changed Selina (who returns to her job much to the surprise of her boss) and arranges a date and she begins to fall for him. But as the Catwoman she joins forces with the Penguin and framing Batman for the kidnapping of a celebrity woman and eventually her death. The Batmobile is also sabotaged by the Penguin’s henchmen, with Batman narrowly saving his own life. Later Bruce exposes the Penguin’s plans to the public thus ruining his chance of winning the election and in anger the Penguin initiates a plan to murder all of Gotham’s first-born sons by kidnapping and taking them into his lair to drown them in a pool of water that has been contaminated with Shreck’s toxic waste. Max gives up himself to save his own son but Penguin is foiled by Batman again whereupon the Penguin then decides to launch missiles around Gotham using mind-controlled penguins. However, Batman is able to jam the frequency used to control the penguins and has missiles launched at the Penguin’s base. Batman confronts the Penguin, which culminates in the Penguin falling into the toxic waters in his lair. Batman then turns to Catwoman and asks her to get Penguin to the police, unmasking himself in the process. Shreck then draws a gun and shoots at Catwoman 4 times but she doesn’t die, claiming she had 6 of her 9 lives left. She then proceeds to kill Max by electrocuting the two of them, using up her 8th life.

The Penguin then emerges from the toxic water and tries to kill Batman, but he succumbs to his wounds. His penguins then take his body into the sewer waters as a final resting place. Bruce returns alone but as he passes by in his car driven by Alfred, he spies the Catwoman’s silhouette in an alley and runs to it only to find her black cat. As Bruce takes the cat and leaves for his home, we see the Bat-Signal lights up the night sky, we see a rear shot of Catwoman gazing up at it.

I found Batman to be very boring and difficult to watch and fund the sets & outfits to be from different time periods (the gangsters look like they were dressed in the 50s or even the 40s). I barely got through it and I doubt I will ever watch it again anytime soon. I liked Batman Returns a bit more but also found it a little dragging and couldn’t watch it in one sitting. So I give the first film a 6 outta 10 & the second a 6.5 outta 10!