TagCinema
Alien 3 Review, Part 4
Ripley's curtain callIn the third article, Ripley woke up in an all-male prison after surviving a shuttle crash. A parasitic alien tagged along and implanted an embryo in an inmate’s dog. The embryo breaks out of the animal and begins killing people until everyone figures out what’s going on, then they hatched one of the dumbest plans I’ve ever seen in cinema. After that, Ripley begins feeling sick. She goes to her still fully intact cryobed and scans herself. She finds that the parasitic alien has also planted an embryo inside her. The fact that Ripley had an embryo in her the entire time is ridiculous for a number of reasons. As I’ve mentioned in previous articles, her cryobed wasn’t broken, so Read More ›
Aliens Review, Part 1
I found Alien to be tolerable, but not worth the hype. So, who’s to say if the second movie will be any better?Editor’s note: Parts one and two of this series have already been published here and here. The editor apologizes for the oversight and hopes you will enjoy this initial review and read the attending reviews as well. The first Alien film is considered a sci-fi classic, and Aliens, the sequel, is widely regarded as the best movie in the series. But personally, I found Alien to be tolerable, but not worth the hype. So, who’s to say if the second movie will be any better? It starts out with Ripley being found by a scavenger ship, where she is quickly taken back to earth and awakened from her cryosleep. Right away, we have a problem. One of “The Cooperation’s” big Read More ›
Barbie: A Subtle Critique of Transhumanism?
Reviews for the new "Barbie" movie abound. But have most of them missed the point?Since its release in July, Barbie has proved as controversial as it has popular. Its joint release alongside Oppenheimer has had movie theaters across the country teeming with “Barbenheimer” fans, those zealous people who watched both movies on the same day in an unprecedented feat of pink glitz and existential dread. But what is Barbie about? Is it a takedown of the patriarchy, a gentle comedy, or something a bit more subtle and powerful? The reviews have ranged between harsh critique and lavish praise. With the flood of commentary, though, have most people missed a central and yet subtle point? Elayne Allen, writing for Public Discourse, offers an alternative interpretation of the movie which might have bypassed the imaginations of Read More ›
Guardians of the Galaxy 3, Part 2
When an otter and a raccoon make you cryLast time, we talked about how the newest addition to the Guardians of the Galaxy movies had a decent script but suffers from tone issues, mostly regarding how the film treats Gamora’s death. The Guardians had just broken into a space station, hoping to find a way to bypass a device that is keeping them from healing Rocket’s wounds which he received from the mysterious Adam Warlock. They break into the station and manage to steal Rocket’s records, but the code that would allow them to bypass Rocket’s kill switch has been removed. However, the records also show the Guardians the face of the man who took the code, and presumably, he has transferred it inside his own hard drive Read More ›
Don’t Turn The Lord of the Rings into Star Wars
When you have something as good as the world of Middle Earth, it becomes ever easier to injure the original vision and trade quality for commercial successAmazon’s The Rings of Power, which is based on the appendices in J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings, was an ambitious and expensive project that arguably provided little more than a surface-level and underdeveloped interpretation of Middle Earth and its characters. The show, while entertaining and with its strengths, exemplified a flaw many fans feared: commercializing Tolkien inevitably leads to compromise. Even Peter Jackson’s highly praised rendition of the fantasy epic has its critics, including Tolkien’s son and heir of the family estate, Christopher. The show was visually stunning but had some storytelling issues. For one, we don’t ever get a sense of Middle Earth’s size. Characters pop in and out of different places as if it’s a five-minute Read More ›