Movie review: Alien

Alien

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Great sci-fi movie. They don't make them like this anymore, sadly. Alien tells the story of a mining ship in space that responds to a distress call on a remote world, finds an species of alien, and wacky hijinks ensue. Okay, not hijinks, but some pretty interesting stuff does go down.

I love that there are many angles from which this movie works. The suspense is masterfully done, with just the right pacing; there were points where I was completely startled, even though I knew what was coming. It didn't show too much of the alien, for the most part, which just makes it scarier. (For an example of how to do this completely wrong, see Splice.) The characters are interesting and colourful, in an early 80s way (even though the film came out in 1979, it was ahead of its time). The plot has the alien thing, interwoven with some mysterious and vague military/political agenda, interwoven with ongoing revelations about the aliens and the ship's personnel. Plus, this movie has crazy neat scenes, with the industrial space ship and the stylized alien environments.



My only complaint - there are a few seconds of seeing the full alien that maybe haven't aged that well, where maybe it kind of looks like a guy in a suit...

Modifiers: none

Rating: 9.0 out of 10

Movie review: Melancholia

Melancholia

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Melancholia was painful to watch. I'm not saying it was badly made, because it had very high production value, strong acting, and a story idea that would usually have me chomping at the bit to watch. (The plot revolves around the appearance of a rogue planet on an apparent collision course with Earth, and the apparently linked melancholy/depression of the lead character.) Melancholia, you pulled me in close with "rogue planet", but then quickly catapulted me several football fields away with your excrutiating viewer experience, and even used that same catapult to fling small rocks at me with your slow motion camera work.

I get that the whole thrust of the movie relied on getting across a sense of depression, of futility, of dragging, weighted-down inability to carry on... And the film definitely made the viewer feel this way, but at some point, you have to stop and ask yourself - does anyone want to feel this way? I certainly didn't, and still don't.



Part of the reason I didn't like this movie was that it set itself up poorly, at least in my mind. The intro is all extreme slow motion, which feels like it will never end, and when it finally does end, it cuts to a scene of such frustrating inanity that I got put in a lousy mood for the rest of the show.

On the plus side, I was so annoyed that I stayed awake for the whole thing.

Ooh! I just found my second scrap of paper with notes on it, so I'm adding a few thoughts as an addendum.

1. I was impressed that Jack Bauer managed to keep his cool. I thought for sure he'd lose it and start blowing people away.

2. It struck me as odd that no one seemed to consider or talk about getting Justine some professional help.

3. I found it inexcusable that any parent would fail to wake their child up to witness something so momentous. It made me want to punch this movie in the face.

Man, that planet could not get there soon enough.

Modifiers: none

Rating: 4.0 out of 10