We’re hearing that whistle sound from the theme right now.
Sweet Jeebus, do we miss the living crap out of the 1990s, a weird, gilded golden age for pop culture. And probably no other television show captured the era’s tangible pre-millennium tension quite like The X-Files. Smart and intricate, relentlessly artful in giving up its secrets (Lost should pay more attention than it does), the show grew from a humble mid-season replacement on Fox (TV Guide gave it six weeks) to become one of the most popular television series ever. Even the first film spinoff was good, if just an expanded episode of the television series.
And that makes the possibility of a return to the characters and the mood – and mood was always a giant part of the show – seem all the more like a late-summer visit from old friends. There’s a trend in film right now for 1990s nostalgia, from the elegy for the Clinton administration in the recent romcom Definitely, Maybe to the unabashed pimping found in the hipster indie The Wackness. But we hope this new X-Files film is more than that. We’re hoping it redefines the characters and updates the spooky sense of fun the show once had for the current time.
If The X-Files series was about uncovering the ugly truth below the surface of the mundane, how nice to revisit a sense that the ugliness was at least partially concealed. Not to say ignorance is bliss, but as the Bush era with all its terror and fear of terror winds down to its just infamy it’d be nice to visit the simpler time before. And going back is part of the great tradition – and some of the real magic – of cinema itself.
Well, the film opens Friday, so here’s hoping. The trailer appears below, and we’ll have our review over the weekend.
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
:: 
