Garish is the description I would use. I watched 1 and 1/2 episodes, I won’t be back.
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Alien: Romulus (2024) - dir. Fede Álvarez
Álvarez has previously directed a much darker reboot of the Evil Dead franchise, as well as the excelent and twisted home invasion piece Don’t Breathe, so I was looking forward to an Alien movie that was more of a throwback to the original’s tense sci-fi horror, rather than Cameron’s action-oriented follow-up or Scott’s weirdly philosophical, confusing prequels.
And for about half of the movies two hours, I got that. We open on a sunless mining colony where our rag tag band of hard done by Company pawns find an opportunity to escape the rigged system that locks them into indentured servitude until some novel disease cuts them down. Alas, their newfound lifeboat is awash with stored facehuggers they inadvertently thaw, at which point, hilarity ensues.
And so long as they’re just regular folks trying to escape the monster, things work really well.
But then they reactivate a busted android, played by a CG de-aged Ian Holm (Ash, the evil company android from the original film) and the movie becomes a constant stream of callbacks to Alien, arch references to Aliens, or technobabble justification to make the plot jive with the Prometheus and Covenant prequels. And it’s all just exhausting. Honestly, they could have cute the film in half, stretched the first hour to 85 minutes, and been better off.
The practical effects (most of the creature stuff) look fantastic, and you definitely get your money’s worth on that regard. It’s just a shame that some ridiculous need for ‘a cinematic universe’ that all clicks together is seemingly given precedence over letting a story just be what it wants to be.
This is a better entry, imho, than either of the two Scott prequels, and definitely inferior to the first two. I’d put it on the level of the interesting but deeply flawed Alien3. And, I suppose, matching up with David Fincher isn’t the worst result.
A good scary time in the dark, but go in with tempered expectations.
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I watched Dune on a plane, because epics are best viewed on a seat-back screen. It was too long (especially considering it’s really only half a movie), but still pretty interesting and visually stunning. If you like “the fate of our people is in your hands” stuff.
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Wicked Little Letters on Netflix. Enjoyable. No murders, space aliens, or battle scenes.
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Yeah, we saw that on our flight back from Berlin. I love Jessie Buckley. She’s amazing in Men and Fargo, too.
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Jessie Buckley was on a “game” show auditioning for the part of Nancy in a West End production of “Oliver!”. The judges included Andrew Lloyd Weber, John Barrowman, and the late, great Barry Humphries. Definitely worth checking out. I think I watched it on YouTube.
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I’d watch her recite the phone book 
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Then is it even a movie?!
(Joke! Ha! I kill me!)
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Me, too. She’s so talented.
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I’ll look for that. I was in a community theater version of Oliver as a kid - played an orphan. I can still sing every word of Food Glorious Food 
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I picked “Consider Yourself” to sing a capella for a musical theater class. Such wonderful songs.
Have you seen the clip of Davy Jones (Artful Dodger) and Georgia Brown (Nancy) performing “As Long As He Needs Me” on Ed Sullivan?
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Just finished a very fine 1957 Korean War legal thriller called Time Limit. Extremely talented cast including Richard Widmark, Richard Basehart, Martin Balsam, June Lockhart, Rip Torn, and Khigh “Wo Fat” Deigh. Available on Prime and highly recommended.
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I was in Oliver in high school!
I remember all the lyrics, too. And I remember our terrible Midwest attempt at Cockney which sounded more like Dick Van Dyke in Merry Poppins than I’d care to admit.
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LOL. I was scrolling through my streaming cable selections on my iPad in the kitchen, when Men In Black showed up. (spoiler - E! Was running the entire series ) so I clicked on it, just in time for that scene. Seriously!
You do know Elvis is dead …
Made my evening.
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Netflix, Lolo and the Kid.
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Watched Double Blind yesterday — one of a handful of recent NYT recs. It was alright.
Watched another episode of Time Bandits, which we continue to enjoy, and we finished the evening with a couple more old Curb epis. Now on season 5 (!).
I’ve really enjoyed Time Bandits. They did a great job with getting the sense of quirky and historical humor that the movie had. Last two episodes drop this Wednesday.
Watched a documentary about Roger Federer on prime last night. It’s called the Last 12 Days and shows his last match in 2022. Lots of famous tennis players featured and his wonderful wife and two set of twins! Always seemed like a great guy on the court and off.
I had fond memories of Oliver!, until I saw a local production recently (first time I’d seen any production in probably 40 years). I was appalled listening to As Long As He Needs Me. Ruined the musical for me for life.
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