A Hopeful Journey on a Strange Day
Apparently 20th Century Fox has declared this Alien Day (I guess because of LV-426, the planet from the original Alien where the ship and creatures were discovered--to-day is April 26, or 4.26). To celebrate, they've released a short starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender:
Click to viewI'm not sure if any of this is footage that will be included in Alien Covenant. It seems like the sequel one would have expected from the end of Prometheus--Elizabeth Shaw and David developing a new relationship as they track down the homeworld of the Engineers. I would've liked to have seen that movie, the one Ridley Scott probably planned before bullshit criticism made him second guess himself. None of the criticisms about Prometheus have held up--I've gone over why before as have other people, this video's pretty comprehensive, though if you're still clinging to a belief that Prometheus doesn't make sense, I suppose you probably can't be reached at this point.
Poor Elizabeth Shaw, I wonder what else happened to make her warm to David. Maybe she was just going out of her mind with loneliness. I'd sure have loved a movie about Noomi Rapace going all Robinson Crusoe, except crazier, on a ship designed by H.R. Giger. But there's no way that would be a mainstream film.
I first heard of Alien Day last night, or early morning, when I saw Mark Gatiss tweet a few seconds after I checked Twitter: "It's #AlienDay ! When is #PrometheusApologyDay?" I thought about tweeting at him, "What about #SleepNoMoreApologyDay" or a reference to one of the other beyond mediocre episodes of Doctor Who or Sherlock he's written but figured at least a few hundred people would be tweeting variations of that at him and, looking now, I see I was right. There's a guy who really should not be throwing stones, but I suppose it would be more surprising to learn he's perfectly aware of what a bad writer he usually is.
Jonathan Demme passed away to-day--I don't have enough to say about him for a whole post but I felt like I should say a few things. I haven't seen Silence of the Lambs in over twenty years but I remember liking it--the same goes for Melvin and Howard. I hated Beloved so much so it was only recently I finally managed to read a Toni Morrison book (Sula) and discover she actually is a genius. I might blame the film version of Beloved's failings more on Oprah Winfrey than on Demme, though. I remember being moved by Philadelphia but, again, I haven't seen it in forever. The only Demme that's fresh enough in my memory is his first feature film as a director, the 1974 exploitation film Caged Heat which I wrote about in 2015. It does remain an entertaining Women in Prison film and works in a nice robbery plot. Rainbeaux Smith, nude, kicking the door in solitary confinement, is still cute and oddly funny.
