BEFORE: Well, best laid plans being what they are and all, somehow I kind of did run out of time in October, and today's film was SUPPOSED to be my Halloween film. You can always count on an "Alien" film to have a couple creatures and some jump-scares, right? Along with something bursting out of somebody's stomach or eating somebody's face off - but then a few things happened. First and foremost, I watched the "Smile" movies and really decided that nothing could really top that for both gore AND shocking moments, so it kind of made sense to let that one stand as my Halloween film, I just didn't think anything could top it, maybe I was wrong, and if so, I'll find out today.
Then I had to work on Halloween itself, really, it's OK, I'm fine with it - I'm past the age where I feel the need to dress up or go to a party, and if I want candy, I'll just buy some, whatever I want. That's called being an adult, and most of Halloween is designed for kids, unless you're single and you want to go to a party to try to get some action. That's off the table for me, so what's the point, then? Anyway, I worked at the theater at an animation event for the students, they screened a bunch of the films that the undergrad animators were working on, with a break for a pizza party and then a costume contest after. A few trick-or-treaters stopped in at the theater (more than stopped at home, apparently) and sure, a good time was had by the students, but after, I was really BEAT and just wanted to get home, where I still had to eat dinner and take the trash out to the curb. No rest for the weary, I guess....
Well, it was also Friday night, so I had a Dogfish Head pumpkin ale and also a Sierra Nevada Narwhal Imperial Stout - it had a weird creature on the label that I mistook for a sea monster, but no, it was a narwhal, which is a real fish, it turns out. Anyway I fell asleep almost right after sitting down to watch a TV show, so I never would have made it through a movie, anyway. Again it's totally fine, I'm not behind because my chain is designed to slow down here in the late fall, we're just two months from the end of Movie Year 17, and I only have to watch 20 more films to reach the annual goal of 300. So, 10 in November and 10 in December, so it made sense to stop for a pause after Movie #5,180, and now I just have to watch a movie like every other day or every third day to make it to Christmas on time.
So I only watched 24 movies in October, not 25, again, it's fine. I'll watch this one tonight and still be on track. Here's the format breakdown for October:
14 Movies watched on cable (saved to DVD): Awake, The Eye, Mom and Dad, Dream Scenario, Trap, Renfield, Haunted Mansion (2023), Sinners, Blink Twice, A Ghost Story, A Nightmare on Elm Street (2010), Strange Darling, Smile, Smile 2
4 watched on Netflix: The Munsters, Kraven the Hunter, I Lost My Body, The Discovery
2 watched on Amazon Prime: The First Omen, Nosferatu (2024)
1 watched on Hulu: The Pope's Exorcist
1 watched on Hulu: The Pope's Exorcist
2 watched on Tubi: "The Fog" (2005), Cooties
1 watched in theaters: The Fantastic Four: First Steps
24 TOTAL
Sure, October was a crazy month, I was away for a week so it's still amazing that I got 24 movies watched - I cheated and pre-gamed a couple, of course, but it's what I do. So here we go with November, and these are the links that should get me to, say, Thanksgiving: Trevor Newlin carries over from "Smile 2", and then Daniel Betts, John Magaro, Sharon Washington, Paul Raci, Riz Ahmed, Frances Conroy and Ben Sinclair. It looks like Riz Ahmed will be in three films, not four - I was waiting for a film called "Relay" to be available on streaming, but it looks like it won't be. Again, it's fine, I had a back-up plan ready in case that film wasn't available, I'll still have a way to get to Movie #5,200. Plans within plans are sometimes necessary, I've learned.
FOLLOW-UP TO: "Alien: Covenant" (Movie #3,191)
THE PLOT: While scavenging a derelict space station, a group of young space colonists come face to face with the most terrifying life form in the universe.
AFTER: Yeah, it's like I figured - this is definitely an "Alien" movie in that it ticks off all the boxes, but then that becomes a problem because it's so busy ticking off those boxes that it doesn't really get around to showing us something we haven't seen before, except for one new bit at the end, but it's such a LONG walk there, you may wonder if it was worth all the effort. This is what tends to happen when a franchise reaches that point where they stop numbering the movies, like I said last week, and they start using colons and more words in the title to both confuse us and try to draw in the young viewers who simply won't watch a "Part 4" because they have not seen parts 1 through 3. Kids, go back and watch the old movies, they're on TCM or something, if you want to learn a few things. If they're not on TCM they're streaming somewhere for "free" on one of the 17 services you're paying for. 18 if you count the services that pretends to find all your other duplicate accounts and cancel them for you, you big dopes. Do you NOT know how to look at your own credit card bill and figure out what you're paying for every month? Or do your parents still pay all your bills for you, you entitled bastards?
Anyway, kiddos, meet the xenomorph alien, his race is going to take over the whole galaxy someday, or maybe just one planet at a time is enough, all you really need to know is that it's hungry and was born to reproduce. Oh, it's not going to look like that when it starts out, it's going to look like an egg or a crab that washed up on the beach, only DON'T TOUCH it because it's going to go RIGHT for your face, and then where will you be? See, this is why you should watch those old movies, so someday when you're in another solar system investigating another world or a mysteriously abandoned space station, you'll know what NOT to do. The classic films have value, I promise. We look to the mistakes of the future past so we can avoid making them again in the future future.
The film follows 6 colonists from the planet LV-410 who are in the employ of the Weyland-Yutani company, and whenever they try to transfer back to earth, they are told that their contract has been extended and they have to put in another 4,000 hours in the mines before they qualify for a transfer. Relatable, right? I just started a second job and I have to work at 30 Brooklyn Nets games before I get a raise, do you think once I hit 30 they'll raise that to 40? Between the uniforms and the pre-game meal served in the cafeteria, I don't think I've ever had a job that felt so much like being on a prison work detail, just saying. I'm now motivated to find a better or at least less physically taxing job, but if I have to keep this one for a couple months, it will at least allow me to earn some money during the college's winter break. The tricky part is all just scheduling, figuring out how many shifts at each job I can do without creating any conflicts.
Oh, right, alien xenomorphs. You know that most of the six people who visit the abandoned space station are probably going to die, right? At this point doing something innovative in the "Alien" franchise would involve the majority of people surviving after battling the face-huggers, or coming out on top, or blowing up the station AND also being able to escape from it, instead of that being an either/or proposition. It feels like with most franchises, like "Nightmare on Elm Street", "Superman" and "The Omen" (among others) that we've looped back around to the beginning again, or a beginning of sorts. While this is not really a shot-for-shot remake of the original film, there's a lot in common, they share the same DNA, for sure. But Wiki tells me that this one is set between "Alien" and "Aliens", so it's really Alien 1.5, the franchise is having its "Rogue One" moment, though I don't remember enough about the old films' plots to see exactly how this one ties in. Maybe it doesn't, except for having a broken-down android that looks a lot like Ian Holm's character.
One thing this film shares with the original is that the cast is very small, just six humans and an android. But the original cast has been dying off - Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, that's four of the original 7 alien-nauts who are no longer alive. Well, damn, now I feel old(er). The 1979 film was proof that a director could do a lot with a little, provided you had the special effects to back you up, and gross things and jump-scares could make up the difference.
I can't help but think that this is all some kind of metaphor for something, but I can't quite work it all out. Normally I'd think that there's some political point or argument being made, but even if I try to impose Trump or MAGA-ism on this, it doesn't really line up. Like do the aliens represent Obamacare, or the January 6 rioters, or fascism? I'm probably over-thinking it again, right? Not everything is a political allegory, even if most things are these days. But damn, I at least wanted one giant alien at the center of all the evil with a big mass of orange hair, and I was very disappointed. OK, not really. There could have been an anti-immigration tie-in here, you know, the other kind of "aliens" and that didn't really happen either.
So this is just meh, at the end of the day, they'll keep the franchise going with this one but again, there wasn't much new ground broken, and the story is just a filler one taking place between two of the original films, so come on, who cares? The space station was split into two parts, Romulus and Remus, and I didn't really understand why, that's just bad storytelling I guess. There is, however, a proper viewing order for all seven "Alien" films, and maybe someday there could be something gained by watching them all in that order. Maybe.
Directed by Fede Alvarez (director of "The Girl in the Spider's Web")
Also starring Cailee Spaeny (last seen in "Priscilla"), David Jonsson, Archie Renaux (last seen in "Morbius"), Isabela Merced (last seen in "Superman" (2025)), Spike Fearn (last seen in "The Batman"), Aileen Wu, Rosie Ede (last seen in "The Flash"), Soma Simon, Bence Okeke, Viktor Orizu, Robert Bobroczkyi, Elemer Szatmari (last seen in "Dune: Part Two") and the voices of Daniel Betts (last seen in "Here"), Annemarie Griggs
RATING: 4 out of 10 cryo chambers
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