Movie Thread

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

>2005
If this movie was much younger it would start with a Star Wars opening text crawl reminding everyone that Lovecraft was the most racist racist to ever racist.

[wulfenlord]

>not advocating Dagon

[CuckTurdginson]

Is Caligari based off a Lovecraft book or something.

[rabidtictac]

I checked the wiki page and it would seem not. Perhaps one could cite Poe as the catch-all inspiration for weird writing and oddball cinema of a certain era.

The script was inspired by various experiences from the lives of Janowitz and Mayer, both pacifists who were left distrustful of authority after their experiences with the military during World War I. The film makes use of a frame story, with a prologue and epilogue combined with a twist ending.

My math could be shit, but Lovecraft was around 30 when Caligari was made. His stories didn't really take off until after his death. Howard was even younger. Clark Ashton Smith was a bit older, around 37. None of those three seem to have been in the age range to inspire Caligari.

It always fascinates me how much amazing American fiction is out there, and for how long it has existed. Concepts one sees on the screen today in modern fantasy/SF trash were bettered 100 years ago, both in books and in film. As the medium of film grows older, it seems all but certain film will go the way of books and be completely integrated into human collective consciousness. As much its own language as any other. Thousands of years of books, but only a hundred+ years of film. Yet the transformation of society has been total and irreversible across all cultures exposed.

[CuckTurdginson]

Alien: Romulus

I like some of the world building, like the planet our cast starts the movie on. Very efficient, but I spent a lot of time thinking about the first movie - and you definitely aren't allowed to take your time like that anymore. This has a slower pace than a lot of shit I've seen - but like, for example - our first example of a chest burster happens after maybe an hour, when that shit happened to John Hurt like three days later during dinner. You could nitpick lore here - but I think it is more of a pacing issue.

The sets are really fucking good, the shots in space look great, there's a good sense of atmosphere and dread. The characterization is pretty weak. There's a really strong performance from the android character - but aside from him, who is a strong - likable presence, the other characters are either flat - or flat and douchey. That's something I remember from Don't Breathe - from the same director - the robbers being flat and Stephen Lang offering the charismatic performance.

I get that in the first Alien - Ripley is the charismatic one who is right about everything, but a lot of the other space truckers are charming in their own ways - Yaphet Kotto is memorable, Tom Skerritt's death scene stands out. There's nothing like that with the supporting cast here. There is another pregnant character, and remembering Don't Breathe - you know the whole time she'll have an alien baby, and they really don't try to throw you. It feels telegraphed, the alien baby is extremely creepy - but the buildup has no punch.

Ian Holm is deepfaked into the movie, and is apparently credited. With the deepfaking, Ian Holm appears completely mauled - and it is on the more convincing end of when movies have done this. Still fucking pointless, but could be worse.

Its a creepy movie, its got atmosphere and genuinely scary setpieces. Just treat it like a Sci-Fi Friday the 13th and its probably gonna work one time.

I know there was talks a few years ago about bringing Sigourney Weaver back, and watching this - I do think that's inevitable. The question is how they do it now, I guess. What would be really terrible is if they de-age her to look like 1980's Sigourney Weaver in a direct sequel to this movie. Which makes that the highest possibility.

[Kugelfisch]

You've been using the "-" a lot recently and you've been using it wrong in almost every case. Rethink your usage of it. It's used for side sentences too far out of the scope of a comma, not as a replacement for a comma or even to end a sentence.
I've seen semicolons misused that badly but never a dash.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

Did the magic black goo show up again? Modern Alien movies think it's the greatest thing since sliced bread.

[Gendo's Ocular Dickhole]

Did the magic black goo show up again?

Indeed it did, and it's part of the reason why the third act becomes the worst phase of the movie (aside from the disjointed fusion between Alien + Aliens for the first two thirds). Most of the film felt like a young adult drama written by CW screenwriters wearing the skin of the Alien IP with tons of TFA-tier memberberries, but Ridley's autism wreaks havoc towards the end, once again reminding everyone that his prequels are "canon" and you must accept them or else. The climax, in particular, becomes a fusion of Prometheus meets Resurrection as Moner gives birth to some Slenderman-looking hybrid thing with a tranny crotch & a retarded smile stuck on its face, swiftly followed by getting ejected into space.

Of course, the usual suspects are praising it as a "return to form" and "the FrAnChIsE iS sAvEd!!" despite it being nothing but empty nostalgia faggotry filled with zoomers.

[VoiceOfReasonPast]

>mfw there's Prometheus and Resurrection in the newest Alien movie


Is this what the franchise has come to? Endless black goo and facehugger sex to shit out new Not-Quite-Xenomorphs because that's apparently all that Ridley can come up with anymore?

[Rapeculture]

I almost feel like the black goo was something Ridley Scott forced onto Fede Alvarez, since Scott's drunken ass produced this fucking thing. God what a missed fucking opportunity.