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No, Chris Carter will not tell you what happens in the new "X-Files" movie.

"I think people are going to like it better if they're surprised," said the director/co-writer of the new film (opening July 25) based on his acclaimed science-fiction series.

Only recently did Carter release the movie's title: "The X-Files: I Want to Believe."

The title is a reference to a poster hanging on the office wall of FBI agent Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), but there's more to it than that.

"It's really emblematic of Mulder's struggle of what is his faith, his belief in the paranormal," Carter said from his L.A. offices, where he's finishing editing on the movie. It also reflects the struggle of Mulder's partner, agent Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson). "Hers is the dilemma of pure science, being a medical doctor, and her faith, being a Catholic."

Carter and his writing partner Frank Spotnitz have been working on the movie pretty much since the TV series left the air in 2002. The "pretty much" was a much-publicized dispute, since settled, between Carter's company and Fox over profit participation on the series.

The profit dispute "could be the best thing that could have happened," Carter said. "It created an appetite for the show."

When Carter gathered Duchovny, Anderson and the rest of his "X-Files" team on the set, he said, "It was like we never left, and at the same time it was a big deal because we were doing a movie and not a TV series."

'Journey adds new dimensions to Verne

Brendan Fraser learned on the first day on the set of "Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D" that shooting digitally in three dimensions is different.

"The director says 'Cut - check the gate,' Fraser said, referring to the rectangular opening of a film camera that must be checked for stray hairs between every shot. "The camera operator turns to his first assistant, who turns to the camera operator and says, 'There's no gate.' " Instead, the digital-video cameras (you need two to make a 3D image) are linked to cables "running back to tents full of, and I say this with love in my heart, nerds" who handle the bits and bytes of information, Fraser said at ShoWest, the annual convention of movie exhibitors.

"Journey to the Center of the Earth 3D" is a modern retelling of the Jules Verne classic, starring Fraser as a scientist who ventures - with his nephew (Josh Hutcherson) and an agile mountain guide (Anita Briem) - deep into the bowels of the earth.

Fraser called the 3D technology "kind of a beta for where cinema is headed." In fact, the film is a beta-test for the camera technology that James Cameron ("Titanic") is employing for his much-anticipated 3D epic "Avatar" coming in 2009. "Journey" is directed by longtime special-effects wizard Eric Brevig (who, as it happens, worked on visual effects for Cameron's "The Abyss.")

The technology of 3D, Fraser said, "is a force that we cannot ignore - ['Journey'] is the tip of the spear of where viewing films for audiences is going to go."

Character actor finally 'The Guy' in Sundance hit

Richard Jenkins says it simply: "I'm never The Guy." Jenkins, a 60-year-old character actor whose credits include "North Country," "The Kingdom" and "Six Feet Under" (playing Peter Krause's dead dad), is usually the guy next to The Guy.

But in "The Visitor," a subtle drama that played at the 2008 Sundance Film Festival, Jenkins is The Guy.

"It was something unexpected for me," Jenkins said. Jenkins plays Walter Vale, an economics professor who finds a bit of the global economy - a Syrian man (Haaz Sleiman) and his African girlfriend (Danai Jekesai Gurira), both undocumented - squatting in his Manhattan apartment.

The role came through luck. Writer-director Tom McCarthy was staying at the same Los Angeles hotel, and they went out for dinner and talked about the story McCarthy was planning to follow up his 2003 Sundance hit "The Station Agent."

"He said, 'I want an Everyman,' " Jenkins said. "He had a list of people who he was interested in. After we went out to eat, he said, 'I had your voice when I was writing this part.' I think he also wanted somebody who could walk down the streets of New York and people wouldn't stop and say, 'Look, look!' He wanted somebody who could blend in."

Jenkins thinks McCarthy's directing is influenced by his work as an actor (McCarthy's acting credits include "Syriana" and the last season of "The Wire").

"He directs actors the way he likes to be directed," Jenkins said.