Posts Tagged ‘alien

12
Jun
12

5 Reasons Why Prometheus Failed

By SlickTiger 12 Comments
Categories: Movie Reviews
Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

PROM-003 - A monolithic figure towers over the explorers of a distant planet.As you guys may have read a few weeks back, I was so excited about the Alien prequel Prometheus that I went out and hired all four Alien movies in anticipation of what people were saying was going to be one of the best movies of 2012.

In retrospect, I needn’t have bothered. Prometheus is so vastly different from the other four Alien films, it’s probably better if you go into it without any preconceptions from the other films whatsoever.

In fact, it’s probably better if you straight up don’t go and see this movie at all, it is honestly that infuriating and here’s why.

Reason No.1: It has more loose ends than a bowl of bolognaise

Don’t get me wrong here, I’m all for leaving a few questions unanswered at the end of the film, it’s a great way to inspire debate and ensure the film lives on in people’s minds after they’ve seen it.

But I draw the line where a film leaves you guessing what the hell was going on from pretty much the opening scene right through to the final fade out.

Writer Damon Lindelof and director Ridley Scott entice the audience with provocative tidbits throughout the film that hint at a much, much bigger story that is never developed or revealed.

 

 

The result is that about two thirds of the way through the movie, you start to feel like either you’re the biggest idiot on the planet for not understanding what’s going on or Lindelof an Scott are deliberately obscuring everything to mind-fuck the audience.

Both conclusions inspired the same reaction in me – outright fury for spending so much money to see a film that basically doesn’t make any fucking sense.

Reason No. 2: Every human in the movie is shit

Notice how I said every human in the movie. Michael Fassbender’s portrayal of the android David was probably the best piece of acting in the movie, despite the fact that his character’s motives throughout the film as clear as mud.

As for everyone else, I challenge anyone outright to find one character they actually like in this movie.

 

 

Archaeologist Charlie Holloway (Logan Marshall-Green) is a leery jerk who opts to get drunk after making possibly the biggest discovery of human history, Weyland Corporation head honcho Meredith Vickers (Charlize Theron) has not one redeeming quality and is as interesting as dry toast throughout, Captain Janek (Idris Elba) doesn’t seem to give a shit one way or another until he (SPOILER ALERT!) bizarrely sacrifices himself at the end of the movie and Guy Pearce is a disillusioned old turd who you just want to die from the minute he appears on screen.

And then there’s the film’s heroine, Elizabeth Shaw (Noomi Rapace) who is basically the made-in-Japan version of the original Ripley from Alien, only where Sigourney Weaver looks badass and like she could kick seven shades of shit out of you, Rapace looks timid and like she might be better suited playing the over-looked love interest in a quaint English rom-com.

As for the rest of the cast, they’re nothing more than fodder. I’m not sure why they even bothered to name them, I would’ve just gone with “dude who dies first” and “token Asian guy”.

 

 

It’s a big problem when you produce a movie that doesn’t have any likeable characters because there’s very little chance of your audience investing in the movie if the characters all feel like cardboard cutouts.

But to make things worse…

Reason No.3: The characters do one epically retarded thing after the next (HILARIOUS SPOILER ALERT)

You’re on the surface of an alien planet that could contain any number of unidentifiable and harmful bacteria and you take your spacesuit helmet off the second your suit tells you the air is breathable?!

You encounter a weird dick-like, alien snake thing that flares open like a goddamn spitting cobra and you decide to approach it like it’s a harmless Labrador puppy?!

 

 

Your crew members are stranded in the bowels of a hostile alien planet but instead of ensuring their safety until they get back you decide to go off and have a shag?!

You receive a signal from one of your crew member’s suits who you know is dead right outside your ship so you decide to open it up and invite him in for tea?! (Not quite, but they might as well have).

A gigantic spaceship is about to roll right on top of you and you don’t veer right or left but opt instead to run directly in its path?!

I could go on, but I think you get the point by now. The characters in this movie put TIMMAY! to shame on the tardometer.

Reason No.4: Christianity

Yep. You heard me. The big “C”. This film is riddled with it.

In fact, when viewed through the stained-glass window of Christianity, the film makes a lot more sense, even if it is only on a symbolic level (thank you Cavalorn for shedding some light on what the hell this movie might have been eluding to).

 

 

Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing against Christianity, or any religion for that matter provided a) they are not taken to murderous extremes and b) they are not used in the goddamn prequel to Alien!

Reason No.5: Complete and utter lack of any kind of originality

If this article from Forbes is legit, then all Prometheus comprises of is a patchwork of characters, concepts, themes and designs stolen from Dark City, Contact, Stargate, AI: Artificial Intelligence, and Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.

We’ve seen this all before. Sure, it’s a visually stunning piece of film and when the gut-churning violence gets going, it pulls no punches, but otherwise there is very little going for this movie.

Of course, I might be missing some crucial thread that ties everything together and makes Prometheus some kind of sci-fi game changer, so feel free to hit me up in the comments section if you think I have.

Prometheus aims high and misses. The only thing that could possibly save this film is a sequel but the big question is, after this disappointing prequel, would anyone watch it?

Final verdict: 4/10

-ST

03
May
12

7 Things The Alien Movies Taught Me

By SlickTiger 2 Comments
Categories: Movie Reviews and Radass Videos
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

alien_from_the_movieLike I mentioned in my last post, over the long weekend we hired all 4 Alien Movies, watched them pretty much back to back and came away from that experience with some profound insights.

I mean, when you stop and think about it, have YOU seen all 4 Alien movies? And if you have you hardly remember them right? Mmmyes, that’s what I thought…

It wasn’t easy tracking them all down, that’s the first thing you need to know. Aliens, Alien 3 and Alien Resurrection are widely regarded by movie critics the world over as being ok, shit and godawful respectively, so most video stores only have the first one.

If you live in CT, DVD Nouveau was the only store that had all 4, so bank that if you wanna watch them like we did, but you probably won’t because the next thing you’re about to read is The Tiger’s List Of 7 Things The Alien Films Taught Me:

 

 

1. Ellen Ripley (Sigourney Weaver) is the hardest woman known to man

Not only does she survive three separate alien attacks, but after she voluntarily swan dives backwards into a gigantic furnace to prevent an alien queen from bursting out of her at the end of the third movie, they bring her back from the dead by cloning her in Alien Resurrection so she can create and kill another shipload of aliens.

2. Numero cuatro es el mejor!

The first one is a classic. The second one is cheesy, the third one is vacuous, but for me Alien Resurrection was the best. Movie critics be damned, the fourth one is the only movie that hasn’t aged, doesn’t take itself too seriously, introduces new and significant plot twists and kicks more ass than the other three combined.

3. Ron Perlman can only play two characters: Hellboy and a jerk

I’ve seen him play a jerk many times, but his portrayal of the jerk “Johner” in Alien Resurrection is what finally made me realise how amazingly jerky his jerk-based acting style actually is.

 

 

4. Robots are evil. No wait, they’re good. No wait, KILL THEM ALL

The robot Ash in the first Alien movie is a total asshole who loses his shit, rolls up a magazine and forces it into Ripley’s mouth in an attempt to somehow kill her (?), making him a very bad robot indeed. Fifty-seven years later, robots are rad (“Bishop”, the robot in Aliens actually saves the day) but fast forward 200 years and robots are whiny, emotionally insecure and constantly questioning the validity of their existence. Needless to say, choosing Winona Ryder to play that role was nothing short of genius.

5. Somewhere between Prometheus and Alien, technology regresses back to DOS

The “technology” in the original Alien movie (which was released in 1979) looks like it was salvaged from a plane in the mid 60s. You interact with it by typing questions onto a black screen with green writing. Would you trust technology like that to keep you safe in space? That shit was scarier than the alien!

 

 

6. For the love of God, you cannot use aliens as weapons!

Alien = let’s send a towing ship to this creepy planet to bring back some aliens for us to study on the off chance that we can use the aliens as weapons. Don’t tell anyone. Aliens = let’s send Ripley to the planet the aliens came from because we colonised it to try and study the aliens on the off chance that we can use them as weapons and now everyone’s dead. Don’t tell anyone. Alien 3 = let’s go on a 5 week drinking binge and try make a movie. Alien Resurrection = let’s just not even lie about it this time – clone Ripley, cut the alien queen out of her, get it to lay eggs so that we can make as many aliens as possible and study them on the off chance that we can use them as weapons because you know, things will be different this time…

7. Airlocks are your friend

End of Alien Ripley survives thanks to bum luck and a handy airlock that she opens and schloomf! Sucks the alien into space. End of Aliens Ripley survives thanks to bum luck, being a bit of a badass and a handy airlock that she opens, thus schloomfing the alien queen out into space. End of Alien 3 Ripley dies, possibly because there were no airlocks in sight. End of Alien Resurrection Ripley uses her ACID BLOOD to burn a hole through a glass porthole behind the human / alien monster, thus creating a vacuum that sucks the creature out into space similar to, you guessed it, a vacuum cleaner.

Needless to say, watching all those movies just made me all the more excited to see Prometheus. Watching those movies and THIS trailer:

 

 

June couldn’t come faster 😉

-ST

13
Dec
09

near-death sunday

By SlickTiger 1 Comment
Categories: Being Slick and Good Times
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

There are some Sundays that come around and kick you arse so hard you wish you could go back in time and undo the chaos you got caught up in the night before.

At sometime around 7 this morning a feeling started burning inside me like my guts were on fire. It rose steadily up my throat, roasting me alive inch by inch as whatever evil concoction I’d mixed in my stomach last night fought desperately to see the light of day.

When I feel like this, I know I’m in for a rough two hours. I got a hiatus hernia that probably needs fixing, I saw a doctor about it awhile back and he gave me some meds to fix it, but if I don’t take this pill at the same time everyday, even if I’m a few hours out, I start to suffer.

Then if I take the meds, it flares up before it gets better and for about two hours I feel like I’m being burnt alive by industrial strength acid from the inside out.

In my head I remember Alien, specifically the scene where they try and cut the alien off Kane (John Hurt) when it first attaches to his face and they find out that its blood is so corrosive it eats through two floors.

 

 

That’s what I reckon would happen if you cut me when my reflux is bad.

J-Rab got up to go to work and then visit the place where she used to work so she could see her buddy ol’ pal, the Siberian Tiger Baloo. I lay in bed and entertained thoughts that I might actually have died the night before and was now in hell.

I ate my way through half a pack of Rennies, a double dose of my meds and two of the painkillers they gave after my shoulder operation to try and knock my headache out.

On mornings like these, the Kris Kristofferson song ‘Sunday Morning Coming Down’ becomes the story of my life:

“Well I woke up Sunday morning,
With no way to hold my head that didn’t hurt.
And the beer I had for breakfast wasn’t bad,
So I had one more for dessert.
Then I fumbled through my closet for my clothes,
And found my cleanest dirty shirt.
An’ I shaved my face and combed my hair,
An’ stumbled down the stairs to meet the day.
I’d smoked my brain the night before,
On cigarettes and songs I’d been pickin’.
But I lit my first and watched a small kid,
Cussin’ at a can that he was kicking.
Then I crossed the empty street,
‘n caught the Sunday smell of someone fryin’ chicken.
And it took me back to somethin’,
That I’d lost somehow, somewhere along the way.

On the Sunday morning sidewalk,
Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
‘Cos there’s something in a Sunday,
Makes a body feel alone.
And there’s nothin’ short of dyin’,
Half as lonesome as the sound,
On the sleepin’ city sidewalks:
Sunday mornin’ comin’ down.

In the park I saw a daddy,
With a laughin’ little girl who he was swingin’.
And I stopped beside a Sunday school,
And listened to the song they were singin’.
Then I headed back for home,
And somewhere far away a lonely bell was ringin’.
And it echoed through the canyons,
Like the disappearing dreams of yesterday.

On the Sunday morning sidewalk,
Wishing, Lord, that I was stoned.
‘Cos there’s something in a Sunday,
Makes a body feel alone.
And there’s nothin’ short of dyin’,
Half as lonesome as the sound,
On the sleepin’ city sidewalks:
Sunday mornin’ comin’ down.

Do do do do do do do do,
Do do do do do do do,
Do do do do do do do do,
Do do do do do do do.

To fade

I mean, how excellent is that song? Read it, really read those fucking lyrics! ‘Do do do do do do do do’! Have you ever heard a more compelling call to action?! Do! DO!

 

 

So anyway, eventually the couch healed me, don’t ask me how, but by just sitting upright on it for about an hour, staring at the TV even though it was off, I slowly started to feel better and better and last night slowly swam into focus.

Probably the first thing that came back was me asking one of Graumpot’s Indian guests at his housewarming braai yesterday if she had any black heritage. I mean c’mon! That’s a perfectly innocuous question right? Right?

No. Not right. Wrong. Apparently she spent the rest of the night asking everyone if she looked black in this desperate, paranoid kind of way. I did not mean to upset her in any way, but ended up probably ruining her evening.

Oops.

Otherwise I behaved well. Also, I came up with a new stroke of genius when it comes to remembering the crazy thoughts I have so I can blog about them later, I use this advanced piece of technology called the ‘voice recorder’ on my cell phone.

I just opened my voice files from yesterday and came across the following:

1. ‘Terminator car. Running from right through the car window, around the back and into the left rear view mirror. Stop’

2. ‘We gotta get out of this place’ playing on Graum’s car stereo.

3. A note to write a letter to Josh Homme and post it on my site. This is the gayest idea I’ve ever had.

4. An interview with Graum’s girlfriend M-Class while she was making potato salad with bacon.

5. My attempt at trying to get everyone at the party to tell me their nick names. Fail.

So yeah, great idea there Slick. Life changing stuff. Dun duuunnnnnn!

I drank a bottle of brandy last night, basically put the entire bottle down except for an inch on the bottom. I drank it with coke, which is what I think triggered the intense heartburn this morning.

Remember kids, don’t do what Tiger-Don’t does. Drinking an entire bottle of brandy is never, ever a good idea. It’s a miracle that asking a girl if one of her folks was black is the only thing I did.

J-Rab came late cause she had her office Christmas party and I was so happy to see her, I followed her into the bathroom and hugged her legs while she was trying to pee. Much hilarity ensued. About half an hour later I curled up in her lap (my happy place) and passed out.

It was good to see Graum and M-Class though, they just finished doing a TEFL course so they’ve been scarce over the past few weeks. Peggles and PGF were also there, they didn’t get too fucked up though cause this morning they wanted to go cycling (?)

Good people, good times.

Now it’s Sunday evening and I’m keen to hit the sack and start sawing a couple logs.

Later masturbators 😉

-ST