Underwater (2020)
There’s something satisfying about a well-executed B-movie. Underwater well and truly fits the bill.
Ad Astra Offers an Aching Examination of Masculinity’s Failures
Ad Astra is an astonishing achievement.
Rampage: More Rampaging and Fewer Jokes Than You Might Expect
Watching Rampage, I came to two realisations.
One: I haven’t really liked a Dwayne Johnson movie for years.
Two: His movies all have the same problem. They’re not funny enough.
The Perverse Pessimism of Alien Covenant: The Best Alien Movie Since Aliens
Ridley Scott uses all the black goop and snarling xenomorphs to stage an earnest, ambitious attempt to grapple with big ideas.
Life (2017)
A film that asks “what if Alien but also Gravity?” and that’s about it.
The Grey and the Weight of Mortality
There was a heaviness in the air when I put on The Grey Blu-Ray. It was Monday night; not long after the news of Bowie’s death, not long after a friend’s father had passed away. The air was warped by the weight of the precariousness of life, particularly given my own circumstances; I was visiting my parents…
The Martian is the Anti-Alien – an Optimistic Paean to Science and Nerddom
Three-and-a-half decades ago, Alien established Ridley Scott as a director to watch. Drawing on the conventions of the increasingly-popular slasher film and rejecting the Star-Trek-esque optimism of the sci-fi films of that era, he created a chilling classic. But his potential as a director has dribbled away somewhat in the years since; while I don’t…
Canon Will Eat Itself: Alien and Other Modern Icons
District 9 director Neil Blomkamp kicked up a fuss yesterday when it was reported that his upcoming Alien sequel would break continuity from the last two films of the franchise, Alien3 and Alien: Resurrection. Blomkamp has since stepped back from that assertion – “I’m not trying to undo Alien 3 or Alien: Resurrection, I just…
The Station (2013)
Austrian creature-feature The Station (titled Blood Glacier elsewhere, which, awesome) tries to emulate the classics of the genre. Its first half is John Carpenter’s The Thing with a dash of Alien, as scientists investigating a remote glacier discover a blood-like substance that infects and transforms anything it comes into contact with into a bloodthirsty mutant,…
Prometheus (2012)
Watching Prometheus upon release, it was hard not to sympathise with scientist Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green). Having spent years hoping to find the “Engineers” who brought about the genesis of mankind and left cryptic messages painted on cave walls, he found himself filled with existential despair, upon finding only their corpses. I walked out of…
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