Anna Waronker’s ANNA BY ANNA WARONKER

Maybe it’s not entirely “the season of the witch,” as Anna Waronker sings in “Nothing Personal,” but it’s not exactly That Dog, either. Though the prodigious Haden sisters are gone along with their deliriously sweet harmonies, Waronker has crafted an incredibly strong solo debut from many of the same ingredients that made her old band’s music so infectious. Cellos and violins still add occasional accents, while Waronker layers the choruses with rich blends of her own harmonies. Her guitars are harder and her songwriting spicier, but the album deftly balances beauty (“Beautiful”) and blister (“All for You”).

The intoxicating chorus of “A Hollow Daze” channels That Dog with glorious clarity, while the jangling “I Wish You Well” boasts the best lyric: “What made me think I could survive all the wear and tear? It’s not my thing to stand here and pose for some William Tell.” That combination of emotional honesty and clever wordplay makes this a true summer album you’ll be loving all year long.

Anna Waronker video flashback:

Review: THE SUM OF ALL FEARS

What is the world coming to? In THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER — the first film adapted from a Tom Clancy novel — Sean Connery played a Russian submarine commander and Alec Baldwin played Clancy’s hero, Jack Ryan. Harrison Ford, who played Connery’s son in INDIANA JONES AND THE LAST CRUSADE, took over the Jack Ryan role for two sequels (PATRIOT GAMES and CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, but instead of playing Ryan a third time he chose instead to play … a Russian submarine commander? (Check out K-19: THE WIDOWMAKER. Or, better yet, don’t.) And, by doing so, Ford left the franchise in the hands of … Ben Affleck?

Ford recently told Playboy that he didn’t do SUM because he couldn’t reconcile the tone of the film with the plot: a neo-Nazi hate group gets its hands on a nuclear weapon and detonates it during an American sports event, killing untold thousands and leveling half the city of Baltimore. Their goal is to frame the Russians so that the Americans will retaliate. Why try to destroy the U.S. or Russia when you can trick them into destroying each other? Ford wondered how the audience could care about a handful of characters when thousands were killed in a nuclear explosion, and eventually opted out of the film. It didn’t help matters that Clancy had been grumbling for years that Harrison Ford was too old to be playing Jack Ryan anyway. Neither the novelist nor the actor have been shy about their years-long war of public words.

When Paramount Pictures announced that Ben Affleck was taking over the part, Clancy endorsed him immediately and announced that he’d write a new Jack Ryan novel with Affleck in mind. But the author’s approval aside, Affleck had bigger things to worry about.

Taking over a well-known role from Harrison Ford must have been equally exciting and terrifying for Affleck. On one hand, you’re following in the footsteps of Harrison Ford. But on the other hand, well, you’re following in the footsteps of Harrison Ford. Ford is a man’s man without being macho about it. It’s what makes him human. Check out the scene in PATRIOT GAMES where Jack Ryan breaks down in the hospital as he’s telling his wife that their daughter’s spleen must be removed. Or check out any action scene to see that Jack Ryan is just as unsure of the outcome as we are. Few actors can play emotion and desperation as well as Ford can, and few are willing to plumb the depths of human frailty in an action movie as readily or as ably.

Affleck has always been an affable enough guy. Though he has two Michael Bay action blockbusters under his belt, ARMAGEDDON and PEARL HARBOR weren’t so much films as they were music videos with triple doses of debris. John Frankenheimer’s REINDEER GAMES was a better showcase for Affleck as an action man, and he handles himself quite well in THE SUM OF ALL FEARS. This is not a Harrison Ford performance. It’s a Ben Affleck performance, and the young actor proves there’s nothing wrong with that at all.

SUM isn’t a continuation of the previous films. In fact, it throws all canon out the window and restarts the franchise with fresh faces and relationships. In CLEAR AND PRESENT DANGER, for example, Ryan had his first encounter with a mysterious operative called John Clark. Willem Dafoe played the part. In this film, Affleck’s Ryan also gets a first meeting with John Clark under entirely different circumstances, and this time SCREAM veteran Liev Schreiber capably does the honors.

In the Ford films, Jack and his wife Cathy (Anne Archer) are married with children. In THE SUM OF ALL FEARS, Bridget Moynahan plays Dr. Cathy Muller, whom Ryan has only just started dating. The Admiral Greer character, played by James Earl Jones, has been replaced by a new character called William Cabot, played here by Morgan Freeman. It’s the same kind of mentor role but, since this film’s Jack Ryan is still new to the CIA, there’s a necessary and appropriate place for that kind of character.

John McTiernan (DIE HARD, PREDATOR) directed THE HUNT FOR RED OCTOBER, and Phillip Noyce directed both of Ford’s entries. Phil Alden Robinson, best known for his excellent ensemble thriller SNEAKERS, takes the helm this time around and makes an intelligent, exciting film that puts characters and storytelling first. When the inevitable nuclear explosion happens, Robinson focuses not on the detonation itself but on how it affects characters like Ryan, Cabot and the world leaders who must make sense of what just happened. Some directors might have sent the camera spiraling through a CGI mushroom cloud, but Robinson handles the tragedy respectfully and therefore effectively.

In many ways, a younger version of Jack Ryan works well for this type of story. Even the Harrison Ford version sometimes seemed in over his head in the face of stifling bureaucracy, but Affleck’s character can’t call upon the years of experience and reputation that Ford’s character enjoyed. He has to learn as he goes, and the fate of the world is literally at stake. We also see Ryan trying to reconcile the nature of his globe-spanning, top-secret career with a romance that he desperately wants to last. Affleck and Moynahan play these moments particularly well.

The best thing going for THE SUM OF ALL FEARS is an incredible ensemble cast that starts big with Freeman and Affleck and features lots of respected genre faces. Philip Baker Hall is memorable as the U.S. Secretary of Defense. James Cromwell plays a U.S. President whose popularity is waning. But when the detonation happens, he has to rise to the occasion and make impossible decisions that are far bigger than any one man. Ciarin Hinds brings much dignity and resolve to the role of Nemerov, the Russian President. Action fans will be happy to see longtime Schwarzenegger collaborator Sven Ole-Thorsen and Philip Akin (WAR OF THE WORLDS, HIGHLANDER) in brief but important supporting roles.

THE SUM OF ALL FEARS is a well-made film that handles its subject matter with appropriate gravity. The last third of the film, which sees the United States and Russia on the brink of a war neither wants, deals deeply with character motivations that its cast handles with intensity and humanity. Thrown into the middle of it all is Jack Ryan, and Affleck proves himself worthy of the name at every turn.

Given the respectable box office success of THE SUM OF ALL FEARS, we’ll certainly be seeing Ben Affleck as Jack Ryan again. In the meantime, it will be interesting to see what kind of role Affleck pursues after DAREDEVIL. Maybe he can play a Russian submarine commander.

Review: THE X-FILES series finale

“What is the point of all this? To destroy a man who seeks the truth, or to destroy the truth so that no man can seek it?”

“I am a failure. I am a guilty man. I’ve failed in every respect, and I deserve the harshest punishment for my crimes.” Fox Mulder says it in the series finale of THE X-FILES, but in some respects those words could have come directly from the lips of series creator Chris Carter.

We last saw Mulder (David Duchovny) and Scully (Gillian Anderson) together in the Season Eight finale “Existence,” kissing and cradling their newborn son between them. Everything was in place for a new beginning. Mulder, Scully and baby William could live happily ever after. Perpetual villain Krycek (Nicholas Lea) had taken a fatal bullet to the face from Assistant Director Skinner (Mitch Pileggi), leaving new X-Files agents John Doggett (Robert Patrick) and Monica Reyes (Annabeth Gish) to uncover a new “super soldier” conspiracy and investigate shady Deputy Director Kersh (James Pickens, Jr.).

But it didn’t happen that way. Duchovny left when Twentieth Century Fox renewed the show for a ninth season, but the network held Anderson to her contract. And so the show continued with Scully and the baby, but no Mulder. From the start of the season it was painfully obvious that Carter had no idea how to handle the baby or Duchovny’s absence. Mulder had been forced into hiding by the bio-engineered super soldiers, leaving Scully to play third wheel to Doggett and Reyes. Mulder was gone yet again and baby William was still the target of one incomprehensible conspiracy after another. If Mulder was being hunted by super soldiers who wanted to kill him, why weren’t his friends tearing apart the FBI to save him? No one seemed too concerned. Scully, apparently too busy doing autopsies for Doggett and Reyes to worry about the man she loved, was written as a shadow of her former self. The fiercely talented Anderson had little to do but stand around and be beautiful.

Patrick and Gish were treated just as unfairly. As the writers tried to figure out how to work Scully into each episode, they took too much of the show’s focus away from Doggett and Reyes. The season’s best episode, the hospital ghost story “Audrey Pauley,” was the only one that got it right. In addition to being a great X-File, the episode deeply examined the strong emotional bond between the new agents with powerful performances by Patrick and Gish. Spooky, suspenseful, and beautifully acted, “Audrey Pauley” was everything the new season could have been and should have been.

Meanwhile, the worst crimes of the season had yet to be committed. In “Jump the Shark,” which aired just four weeks before the finale, the Lone Gunmen (Bruce Harwood, Tom Braidwood and Dean Haglund) died heroically to stop the release of a deadly bio-toxin that would have killed thousands. Killing three of the show’s most loved characters with just a few episodes to go would have been bad enough if they’d somehow died protecting Scully or Mulder, but their frivolous death was senseless and cruel. One week later, in the episode “William,” Scully gave up her son for adoption after realizing she could no longer protect him from the various forces of evil that still sought to harm him. But if Scully couldn’t protect him, how could a family of complete strangers keep William safe? Fans hoped the adoption was some kind of ruse. But William didn’t appear in the finale, which made it painfully clear that this episode was the last appearance of the baby that dominated two seasons of awkward storytelling. The miracle child of Mulder and Scully was reduced to just another plot device that Chris Carter couldn’t figure out how to develop. Carter’s decision was both despicable and unforgivable. At least the next two episodes provided closure for Doggett and Reyes.

And that brings us up to “The Truth,” which features the return of Duchovny. Mulder is on trial for the murder of super soldier Knowle Rohrer, but Scully and the gang know that he’s on trial for the murder of a man who can’t be killed. Lots of dead characters appear to Mulder as ghosts of plot points past, while even more long-lost characters show up to testify on Mulder’s behalf. When Mulder is found guilty and sentenced to die, Skinner, Doggett and Reyes orchestrate a jail break. Mulder and Scully flee to the New Mexico desert, where they find themselves face to face with an unexpected harbinger of a truth that not even Mulder is ready to face.

Duchovny and Anderson make “The Truth” come alive with a chemistry more intense than all their years together combined. The scene where Scully tells Mulder that she had to give up “our son” is every bit as heartbreaking and believable as it should have been, while their reunion kiss is hotter than anything the hopelessly romantic fans could have expected. Particularly when Mulder keeps kissing Scully’s fingers and can’t take his eyes off of her even while he’s talking to Skinner.

(The best Mulder/Scully kiss happened at the end of the Season Seven masterpiece “Millennium,” when Mulder gave Scully a New Year’s kiss after staring at her lips during the Dick Clark countdown.)

Mulder doesn’t want Reyes and Doggett to put themselves in danger on his behalf, but Reyes says to him, “We came to this job to give it our best. It’s the way we’re going to leave.” That’s a perfect way to sum up the immense contribution of Robert Patrick and Annabeth Gish to THE X-FILES. They weren’t Mulder and Scully, but in their own way they were just as good. Patrick was the best actor on the show this season, and “The Truth” features some of Gish’s finest work when Reyes delivers a fiery courtroom speech about the sacrifices Mulder and Scully have had to make. As Skinner, Pileggi proves yet again that he was always one of the show’s most valuable secret weapons.

Acting and emotion in “The Truth” are impeccable. But though Carter promised to reveal big secrets, he does little more than connect a few dots. Did the Lone Gunmen really have to die in “Jump the Shark” just so they could appear as ghosts for thirty seconds in the finale? It would have been much funnier if Carter had kept them alive to testify in Mulder’s trial. It’s also disappointing that Sheila Larken, who played Scully’s mother for years on the show, wasn’t featured in “William” or the finale. (Then again, maybe it’s a good thing; if Larken had appeared in these episodes, Carter probably would have killed her character, too.)

If you can bring yourself to accept the unforgivably ridiculous dismissal of baby William, most of the rest of “The Truth” hovers in the vicinity of delivering. An explosive desert helicopter chase looks great, but dramatically it’s only a whimper masquerading as a bang. The true spark is the quiet moment Mulder and Scully share in a Roswell hotel room. Mulder thinks he’s failed, but Scully reassures him. “You only fail if you give up. And I know you. You can’t give up. It’s what I saw in you when we first met. It’s what made me follow you. And it’s why I’d do it all over again.” Mulder crawls into bed with Scully, holding her as she gently nuzzles his face against hers. “Maybe there’s hope,” he says. (And maybe I’ll just keep on pretending “Existence” was the true series finale.)

And so THE X-FILES ends as it began, the story of two people who have nothing but each other in the fight against the future. Was it worth it? The truth is still out there. And until they make another movie, so is the verdict.