#Hollywood A.D.

[randomfoggytiger]

The Poetic Unreality of The Unnatural and Hollywood A.D.

April 2002:

The zombies of “Hollywood A.D.,” first seen in Federman’s movie, have the final word after they are brought to life by the inadvertent contact of the plastic Lazarus Bowl and the fake tree on the soundstage that Mulder and Scully have just left. Duchovny likens this dreamlike, illogical coda to similarly illogical scenes in “The Unnatural��� — images of Dales’ memories turning out to be pictures on his television set; the same boy both delivering liquor to the older Dales and hanging out at Roswell Grays’ baseball games; the alien Exley bleeding red blood when he should bleed green. “It’s a non-linear sense of how images reveal a story,” he said. “In ‘The Unnatural’ you can see that in the moment when Exley bleeds, and in “Hollywood A.D.’ it’s the final moment when a piece of plastic makes zombies dance on a soundstage. These scenes makes poetic sense. It’s like when you’re talking about a poem and you go, ‘What does this poem mean?’ Well, a poem is. It doesn’t mean. That’s really what I feel like about the best images. 

...I had the feeling for some reason people didn’t get the last image of Hollywood A.D. They just thought it was fun. But to me it was really the whole reversal of the episode. If I were to literalize it, it would be to say, ‘Here we are on this Hollywood soundstage and we have the mass-produced plastic replica of a ceramic bowl that may or may not have the voice of Jesus on it, and this plastic bowl, even this far removed from the source, has the power to raise the dead. And more so, it has the power to raise dead people who aren’t even there and make them dance and show us what life is really all about. Mulder talked about this earlier in the bathtub scene, where he says, “Why is it that dead people are always attacking the living?’ I say, ‘They’re hungry first’ and if we stayed with them longer, they would get drunk and make love and dance. It was an imagistic reversal of the whole show but because it wasn’t literalized, maybe it wasn’t successful. For me it was the big circle of what it’s all about. It’s non-existent dead people laughing, dancing, sexy, making love. I feel very comfortable creating an image that is poetic. I think directing is the same as poetry.”

[bisexualfbiagents]

You know, Scully, we've got four weeks' probation vacation and nothing to do, and Wayne Federman's invited us out to LA to watch his movie being filmed... and God knows I could use a little sunshine.

California, here we come.

THE X FILES GIF MEME [8/20] EPISODES Hollywood A.D. (7.19)

[teiasviago]

Mulder & Scully + dates (original)

Bonus:

[the1013file]

[x-files-polls]

Téa Leoni: Cute cameo and the Scully-running-in-the-background-in-heels is one of my favorite gags in the whole show

The Petries: Named after the Dick Van Dyke show. Cute couple. Wonder why they never appeared again

Don't like this propaganda? Reblog it with your own or send some in my askbox

To jog your memory, here are the episodes they're from:

Hollywood A.D.: Wayne Federman, 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.

Arcadia: Several disappearances at an idyllic planned community lead Mulder and Scully to go undercover as a married couple. However, they soon discover that the president of the homeowners' association takes the community covenants and regulations more seriously than they could have imagined.

[bakedbakermom]

Ifs Ands or Bees (read on ao3)

humor // rated T // 571 words tagging @today-in-fic

I always wondered who told Federman about the bee...

A little bit of Hollywood A.D. humor to make up for the angst-fest I've been posting lately. Enjoy!

[nefertitisfjordd]

[earhartsease]

we must have watched Hollywood A.D. a dozen times (x files ep) and it's only this time we caught the nuance of that conversation between Mulder and Gary Shandling (who's "playing Mulder" in the movie being made) about which side Mulder dresses

when Mulder says "left - mostly" and Gary says "...mostly?" and Mulder pauses and then says "most of the time"

anyway this ep is very silly

[aloysiavirgata]

Hi! I'm not sure if you've done this before, but my prompt is: 2023 Mulder and Scully rediscovered an old copy of their Hollywood AD film. Thanks so much!😍

It was the kind of autumn Gothic novels were written for, blustery and orange-gold with purple velvet twilights. The house was creaky with uneven seams that the cold seeped into, left Scully in thick wool socks at breakfast, flannel pajamas at bedtime.

She went to the thrift store after work to hunt for handmade quilts. She liked to rescue them from the sad racks under fluorescent lights, imagined women gossiping and sewing them with fingers as nimble as any surgeon. Remembered how Playtex seamstresses sewed the first space suits with 1/64th of an inch tolerances.

Scully perused the DVD bin as she waited in line, a Rising Sun quilt in shades of blue over her arm. She smiled as she went through them, remembering the times she had seen the films. A Few Good Men, When Harry Met Sally, Gladiator, and…oh.

Christ.

Scully felt her face go hot, glanced around as though anyone were paying attention. She tucked The Lazarus Bowl under the quilt, tossed a twenty on the counter, and fled.

***

Mulder hadn’t really stopped smirking since she came home with it, cracking wise as he assembled a large plate of nachos for them to share.

Scully, angry at herself for this weakness, glared at him from the depths of a laundry-basket quilt in shades of green.

“Should I call Walter?” he asked, settling next to her. “Your main squeeze?”

“Fuck off.”

“How many Hail Marys from Sister Spooky for that?” He hit play.

Scully, visible only as narrowed eyes and a messy bun, watched Téa Leoni sprint across the screen in Manolo Blahniks.

Mulder loaded a chip with refried beans. “Look at her go,” he said with admiration. “You’ve got to be impressed with her commitment to verisimilitude.”

Her onscreen doppelgänger paused to let her bosom heave.

“I would never run in that bra, that would just ruin your neck.”

“Well, that’s why she got paid the big bucks.”

They watched in silence for a while longer, eating, listening to the wind scrape tree branches together over the mortifying dialogue.

“You ever miss it?” Scully asked. She’d be sixty in a few months. Sixty, my god. She was thirty-six when this mess had come out and had been starting to feel past her prime just then.

She’d been a child. An infant.

Mulder made a non-committal noise around a pickled jalapeño. “Sixty-two now, I’d have been punted out 5 years ago anyway.”

“I think the kids say yeeted now,” Scully remarked. “We’d have been yeeted.”

“That’s very lit of you, Scully.”

“I’m hip to the lingo. All the new residents are like…sixteen.”

Gary Shandling waved his gun, made dire threats that violated the Geneva Convention.

“Look at this fucking idiot,” Mulder scowled. “I showed him how to hold the thing, Jesus Christ.”

Scully smirked. “You ever show him whether you dress to the left or the right?”

He grabbed her under the quilt, drew her against him as the windows rattled. “Just you. In the limo, if I recall. God this is a terrible movie.”

“Only on the way back,” she clarified, his hands under her shirt. “I made you buy me dinner first.”

“Always a lady,” he mumbled into her neck. “Though…that was the Bureau card. I guess ol’ Walter bought you dinner and I just reaped the benefits.”

Scully shoved him away.

“Wh-“

“I can’t live this lie any longer, Fox. I’m in love with Associate Producer Walter Skinner.”

[icannotholdmypen]

DAVID DUCHOVNY INVENTED THE WORD BAZINGA?

[randomfoggytiger]

Do you think Wayne Federman used Mulder and Scully's COPS appearance to help market his upcoming movie?

[bisexualfbiagents]

THE X FILES | Hollywood A.D. (7.19)

[teiasviago]

THE X-FILES 7.19 | “Hollywood A.D.”

bonus:

[the1013file]

[x-files-scripts]

The X-Files - “Hollywood A.D.”

Written by David Duchovny

January 24, 2000 (DRAFT)

A few trimmed lines in this early draft as Scully comes to Mulder’s apartment...

Bubble bath:

Zombie dance finale:

[unidentifiedlyingobject]

rewatching hollywood ad so i don't break down in tears during my frees :D havin a ball

yayyyyy have fun!!!!

I know I've already excitedly ranted about this episode but IT'S EVERYTHING OMGGGGGGG