Hi all, this tumblr mainly exists as a way of tracking all the movies I've been watching and some of the initial thoughts, and general feelings, I've had about them.
5/5 - Fantastic movies; movies which need to be seen and enjoyed by everyone.
4/5 - Movies which are very good but don’t have that spark which compels you to make others watch them as well.
3/5 - Average movies; watchable and enjoyable, but nothing which elevates them higher. The baseline all movies are given before watching.
2/5 - Can be watched but really bland and forgettable.
1/5 - Minimal to no reason to watch these films. It may have some redeeming factors e.g. it’s so bad it’s good or there’s one character that’s awesome enough to make it not a total waste of time.
0/5- Total waste of time. Nothing redeemable about these films.
As with every review blog/site, this is all my own personal opinion so feel free to take everything with a grain of salt.
Also I'm Scottish so all reviews will be in UK English. Get used to theatre, colour and words ending in -ised.
Catching Elephant is a theme by Andy Taylor
#365/#82 Alien
(Rewatch)
Following up on a degraded distress call, the crew of the Nostromo come across an alien life form in a crashed ship. When one of the crew is injured by this creature they leave the crashed ship’s planet and attempt to get back to Earth. They quickly realise however, that they are no longer alone on their own ship and something is taking them out one by one.
With the release of Prometheus a couple of weeks ago (a review for that is forthcoming at some point as well (I am so behind on these!)), I felt it prudent to rewatch Alien again to get me in the mood and remind me of the film’s universe.
Alien is one of those genre changing films. If you haven’t seen this film then you will probably have felt its influence at least in other sci-fi/horror films; if you haven’t seen out and out ripoffs of the concept. It basically boils down to Jaws in space.
A little slow to begin with, this movie takes its time to build up your interest in a small band of people that you want to see survive. The characters all feel fleshed out and real, helped by the fact they are not all interchangeable teenagers/twenty-somethings, and that they act in the way you feel real people would given their predicament.
This film also takes a page out of a lot of the old horror monster movies in that it’s much more frightening when you don’t see the monster a lot of the time. The xenomorph is a creepy looking thing for sure, but it’s much more terrifying when it’s just a blip on a computer monitor telling you it’s just outside of frame.
Add to this a group of talent actors in intersting roles, some terror inducing H.R. Giger visuals and a limited score adding to the tension and you’ve got one of the best sci-fi horror movies ever made. 5/5
