Apparently 20th Century Fox has declared this Alien Day (I guess because of LV-426, the planet from the original Alien where the ship and creatures were discovered--to-day is April 26, or 4.26). To celebrate, they've released a short starring Noomi Rapace and Michael Fassbender:
I'm not sure if any of this is footage that will be included in Alien Covenant. It seems like the sequel one would have expected from the end of Prometheus--Elizabeth Shaw and David developing a new relationship as they track down the homeworld of the Engineers. I would've liked to have seen that movie, the one Ridley Scott probably planned before bullshit criticism made him second guess himself. None of the criticisms about Prometheus have held up--I've gone over why before as have other people, this video's pretty comprehensive, though if you're still clinging to a belief that Prometheus doesn't make sense, I suppose you probably can't be reached at this point.
Poor Elizabeth Shaw, I wonder what else happened to make her warm to David. Maybe she was just going out of her mind with loneliness. I'd sure have loved a movie about Noomi Rapace going all Robinson Crusoe, except crazier, on a ship designed by H.R. Giger. But there's no way that would be a mainstream film.
I first heard of Alien Day last night, or early morning, when I saw Mark Gatiss tweet a few seconds after I checked Twitter: "It's #AlienDay ! When is #PrometheusApologyDay?" I thought about tweeting at him, "What about #SleepNoMoreApologyDay" or a reference to one of the other beyond mediocre episodes of Doctor Who or Sherlock he's written but figured at least a few hundred people would be tweeting variations of that at him and, looking now, I see I was right. There's a guy who really should not be throwing stones, but I suppose it would be more surprising to learn he's perfectly aware of what a bad writer he usually is.
Jonathan Demme passed away to-day--I don't have enough to say about him for a whole post but I felt like I should say a few things. I haven't seen Silence of the Lambs in over twenty years but I remember liking it--the same goes for Melvin and Howard. I hated Beloved so much so it was only recently I finally managed to read a Toni Morrison book (Sula) and discover she actually is a genius. I might blame the film version of Beloved's failings more on Oprah Winfrey than on Demme, though. I remember being moved by Philadelphia but, again, I haven't seen it in forever. The only Demme that's fresh enough in my memory is his first feature film as a director, the 1974 exploitation film Caged Heat which I wrote about in 2015. It does remain an entertaining Women in Prison film and works in a nice robbery plot. Rainbeaux Smith, nude, kicking the door in solitary confinement, is still cute and oddly funny.
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