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Resident Alien's avatar

Wow, that's two movie reviews for the price of one. I have to watch Life now.

We had Alien, Aliens, and Alien 3 on VHS. I thoroughly enjoyed the mythical science grunginess of Prometheus and Alien: Covenant. May they live on.

The documentary about the Swiss multidisciplinary artist behind the Alien, HR Giger, which explores the history and scene surrounding this cultural icon was interesting. In 2000, he designed a cast aluminum microphone stand for Jonathan Davis, the lead singer of Korn.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt4074502/

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EchidnaMedia's avatar

Relieved to discover in paragraph 3 that the thing that's like the movie "Alien" is just *another movie*, and not LIFE TODAY.

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HK_PA_Mariner's avatar

Fabulous and well aimed commentary! Greatly enjoyed. And in sync with your overall point here about quality, “Alien” is a beloved classic favorite that I own on Blu-Ray DVD, while I’d watched “Life” – and then utterly forgotten its existence until reading this essay.

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Christina Ballard's avatar

Alien was important to me as it showed a strong female lead.

You say "Life" expresses a Trump era anxiety about purity. I'll agree, as long as we can acknowledge the parallel about a smart woman.

You know the meme:

"Alien is a movie where nobody listens to the smart woman, and then they all die except for the smart woman and her cat. Four stars." Kind of feels like we're almost there.

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Linda Silfven's avatar

Somehow I missed seeing “Life” but will watch for it. But “Alien”, I agree, is a masterpiece. I saw it in the theater when it first came out. Actually I didn’t “see” it since I spent most of the movie with my hand over my eyes! Scariest movie I’ve ever seen, then and now. Only after 2-3 more viewings did I actually see the creature!

I love that movie. It is spine-tingling from the beginning credits. I think the music should’ve gotten an Oscar; it gives me chills. Very few movies are”perfect”, so perfectly put together that every scene is necessary. “Alien” is one, “Jaws” is another.

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