Month: August 2024

It will have been 10 years this November since I embarked on this blogging journey of Major Tom’s Movies.  Where does the time go?  My inaugural post was a review of Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, one of the greatest science fiction, nay, one of the greatest films of all time.  What better time to say goodbye to this website than that?  Now, before anyone freaks out, Major Tom’s Movies isn’t going anywhere.  I’m just making a few adjustments, including when it comes to hosting.  See, for the last ten years, I’ve been using Blue Hosting as my hosting service.  It’s been pretty reliable, but it’s been getting really expensive, especially for the minimum that I needed.  On top of that,  I really haven’t been getting the engagement I was hoping for.  Maybe the algorithms weren’t right, I don’t know.  As it stands, I’ve been putting more money into this venture than I’ve been getting out of it.  Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been doing it for the money.  I’ve been doing it because I enjoy it.  But it was always in the back of my mind, why I should be paying so much for this.

I’ve honestly been thinking about this for quite some time, actually.  Now, I don’t plan on giving up blogging.  Far from it.  I just had to take a different approach.  So, Major Tom’s Movies will continue, but not in its current form.  Honestly, this site hasn’t changed a bit since I started it, and quite frankly, it’s ugly and it’s hard on the eyes.  As of right now, http://www.majortomsmovies.com will be completely inert.  All this will be available to see until November.  For those that want to continue this journey with me, head on over to http://majortomsmovies.wordpress.com for any more future updates and reviews.  I’ve already migrated all my posts and stuff over to that site, so the only thing I will really have to do now is change the links in the tabs, and that’s going to take me a while.  But once that’s done, this site will be left behind, and I will no longer be using Blue Host.

I don’t really feel sad about it either.  In fact, it’s rather freeing, particularly financially.  But there’s another huge reason why I’m making changes NOW.  I want to go back to school.  I want to get into film history.  I want to be a part of preserving movies for future generations.  It’s not enough that I blog about it, but I want to get future generations interested in film.  Right now, we have the YouTube and TikTok generation whose attention spans are less than ideal.  Film history is history, and it’s responsible for a lot of what people have now.  I know the path forward that I need to take.  It’s going to take time, and it’s going to take a lot of work and dedication.  But it’s something I truly want.  My ultimate goal is to teach film history on a college/university level.  By passing on knowledge to the next generations seems the most logical thing to do for me, so I don’t necessarily think that’s going to leave a ton of room for blogging, but it should be an interesting challenge to see how blogging and teaching can work together.  It’s a challenge I’m up for.

So, for those of you that stuck with me, I thank you, and for those that may not follow me: Godspeed and good luck to all of you.  For those that wish to continue with this journey, there’s still a lot of movies coming this year for me to check out.  Head on over to my new website and stay tuned.  Thank you so very much.  This Major Tom, signing off.

Normally, I don’t do box office reports.  There’s generally a lot of data that goes into that and well…I’m lazy.  But this is significant.  Alien: Romulus’s current box office numbers reveal that the film has a very strong opening with 41.5 million dollars domestic and a total of 108.2 million world-wide.  The film apparently had a production budget of 80 million dollars.  So what does that tell us?  It tells us that the film made back more than its production budget in less than 4 days.  The amount a movie opens to can be a strong indication of how successful it’s going to be over the next couple of weeks.  If the film drops off by 50 percent or less over the next week or two, that’s an indication of how strong its legs are.  I believe that Romulus is going to have very strong legs, because people have been waiting for an Alien movie that’s more reminiscent of Ridley Scott’s original movie.  When you factor in the word-of-mouth about the film and the audience and critic ratings with the movie, this thing is going to be a big success.

Honestly, the franchise needed a huge shot in the arm because the last two Alien movies, Prometheus and Alien: Covenant didn’t do very well.  At least, not domestically.  Prometheus came in at 126.5 million against a 130 million dollar budget domestically, where Covenant only brought home 74 million against a 90 million dollar budget.  Again, domestically.  These last two movies bombed in the States, but managed to do a bit better overseas.  But when a movie bombs domestically, studios are not really going to be looking at overseas numbers, because those come in way after the domestic release.  What a movie makes on its initial release is the most important.  It doesn’t have to make back its entire budget on opening weekend, but it needs to come close.  A drop-off of 50 percent or less means that people are going back to see it again and/or bringing others with them.  Romulus can do that because of the strong word of mouth and critical reception it’s received so far.

So, what does this mean for the Alien franchise moving forward?  Great things.  As I mentioned in my review, showrunner Noah Hawley has a new series for FX and Hulu coming out next year called Alien: Earth.  I think that the positive reception of Romulus is going to give the series a massive boost, because people are now interested in the franchise again.  But the opening numbers of this latest film means that we are likely going to see a sequel.  Hopefully, it’s a direct sequel, but I’m absolutely certain that another movie is going to be on its way.  I don’t know if he was joking about it or not, but Fede Alvarez apparently talked to Dan Trachtenberg about a possible new Alien Vs. Predator film, considering how well received Trachtenberg’s Predator prequel, Prey was received.  I fully admit, I enjoyed the first AVP movie, but the second one was too hard to see.

I’m going to be truthful here: A lot of people, including myself, were worried about the future of the Predator and Alien movies when Disney bought 20th Century Fox.  There was a lot of concern about Disney watering down movies that had been rated R in the past.  Well…I think we can safely say that Disney has no problem with R-rated movies as long as the Disney banner isn’t used.  That’s why they kept the 20th Century logo while replacing the Fox part of the logo with Studios.  I never thought that I would ever say this:  I think the Alien and Predator franchises are going to be just fine under the Disney banner with 20th Century Studios being led by Steve Asbell, if he keeps making the smart decisions that he has been since he took over at 20th Century.

Box Office Reports:
Alien Romulus(Current)
Prometheus
Alien: Covenant

Released: August 2024

Director: Fede Alvarez

Run Time: 119 Minutes

Rated R

Distributor: Disney/20th Century Studios

Genre: Science Fiction/Horror

Cast:
Cailee Spaeny: Rain
David Jonsson: Andy
Archie Renaux: Tyler
Isabela Merced: Kay
Spike Fearn: Bjorn
Aileen Wu: Navarro

When it comes big movie franchises, I have a few huge favorites: Star Wars, Lord of the Rings, Indiana Jones, Predator, Terminator, and of course: Alien.  Some of these franchises have been taking a huge pounding over the last 20-30 years with entrees that don’t quite measure up to what the original film delivered, while sometimes taking a franchise into a different, ill-advised direction.  I’ll be one of the few that will defend nearly the entire Alien franchise, despite some of the flawed movies that were made.  I’ll even go so far as to defend Prometheus and Alien: Covenant.  But I can’t deny that those last two movies put the franchise into a real tailspin.  Predator suffered a similar fate until one movie came out and turned it around: Prey.  The film-makers went back to the series’ roots and made an incredibly entertaining prequel that was back far enough in the past that it didn’t actually affect any of the other movies.  Well,  Alien just got it’s shot in the arm with Alien: Romulus, and let me tell you: It’s back.

The film is set about a decade after the events of Alien, when Lt. Ellen Ripley destroyed the Nostromo and sent the xenomorph hurling into the void.  The film focuses on Rainer, a young colonist that’s stuck on a mining colony with no hope of a better future.  Rain and her companion Andy are approached by Tyler, an old acquaintance of Rain’s, and is offered a chance to head to another colony.  The catch?  Tyler and his team need to infiltrate a Weyland-Yutani ship to grab fuel for their cryotubes, and Tyler needs Andy to help access the ship.  Only the ship turns out to be a derelict Weyland-Yutani space station.  It’s orbit is deteriorating, so they need to find the fuel quickly.  What they find on board instead is one of the most devastating life-forms ever encountered.  I really like the fact that this movie is set between Alien and Aliens.  It has continuity with the visual style of Ridley Scott’s original film.  The story is really simple.  It’s about a group of people who are fighting for a better life only to come up against one of the universe’s deadliest creatures.  The movie disposes with any of the existential nonsense that plagued the previous two movies and focuses on being a tightly wound, atmospheric thriller.  It succeeds in ways that I never thought possible.  A lot of people thought that the franchise was dead.  Oh, no it isn’t.  Not with director Fede Alvarez at the helm.  I’ve loved his movies since the Evil Dead remake, so I’m probably biased.

First off, can we acknowledge that practical effects in this day and age are still the best way to convey absolute terror?  The creature design in Alien: Romulus is spectacular.  The late H.R Giger would be proud.  Not only are these still terrifying, but we’re also given a look at a stage of the creature’s life-cycle that we’ve never really seen before.  It should’ve been obvious in the original movie, but here, it kind of takes a page from the movie Species in which the creature cocoons itself to grow into the monstrous beast that it does.  It makes absolute sense.  The facehuggers are still creepy as fuck, and we’re given a close-up view of what happens when they latch on to you.  The gore is also practical and grotesque as it should be, but the CGI effects are actually really good here, but Alvarez made it a point to use practical effects whenever possible and only rely on CGI when it’s not.  The best part? The cinematography is outstanding.  The film is claustrophobic, as was the intent, yet you can still see what’s happening.  Which is more than say for a certain other film in the franchise.  Yes, Aliens Vs. Predator: Requiem, I’m looking at you.  From what I’ve been able to see, most of the sets are practical.  But there are a few shots where CGI is used to create a location, but it seems the most practical solution for that problem.

The acting in Alien: Romulus is stellar.  Cailee Spaeny, just off her outstanding performance in Civil War, takes the lead as Rain.  This young lady’s got a future in the business, I can tell you that.  She’s tough when she needs and vulnerable when the situation calls for it.  Archie Renaux plays Tyler, the head of a group of colonists that want to leave the planet behind, and he’s a take-charge kind of guy that still has enough heart to care about the people that he’s with.  Aileen Wu, plays Navarro the group’s pilot and the love interest of Spike Fearn’s Bjorn.  Every group has someone that you hate with a passion, and Bjorn is it, even though he has a reason for being that way.  But the real star of this show is Andy, played brilliantly by David Jonsson.  This has to be one of the best performances of the year.  The way he goes from this meek and mild companion to Rain, to a more stoic character because of a chip, to a total bad-ass is incredible.  He’s so damn good.  The pacing of the movie is just right.  It starts of a little slow, but that’s for establishing the characters and story, but when it all hits the fan, it never lets up.

While I absolutely think this movie’s phenomenal in every way, I’d be doing a disservice if I didn’t mention some things that might rub the people the wrong way.  First of all, the final act of the movie is batshit crazy, and I love it, but there’s going to be people out there that it won’t work for.  I won’t spoil it, but it’s kind of a big deal, plus the fate of one of the characters is absolutely brutal.  Another issue is the appearance of a certain character is going to ruffle the feathers of some fans.  Ultimately, there’s nothing here that I don’t like.  It all comes together incredibly well, with Fede Alvarez’s direction being tight, deliberate, and exciting.  Alien was one of the first real sci-fi horror films and Romulus takes us all the way back in terms of tone and tension.  It’s wonderfully made, with great acting, excellent effects, and amazing presentation.  Before I wrap this up, I also want to mention that at the showing that I went to, there was a little teaser of the Alien tv show that’s expected to hit the small screen next year called Alien: Earth.  I don’t know what it’s about, but if Noah Hawley’s involved, it’s going to be good.  Alien fans should be really happy with Alien: Romulus, though.  It’s easily the best entry in the series since James Cameron’s Aliens.  Like the Predator franchise, I’d given up Alien for dead.  However, like Predator, Alien got a movie that really understood why people loved this franchise in the first place.  We don’t need an explanation for who created the Xenomorph or why.  We just needed a movie that was willing to scare the pants off its audience, and Alien: Romulus does just that.  I think this movie’s going to have legs and I actually want to see a sequel to this.  I really do.  I hope it gets one, and hopefully a direct one, but if not, I think Alien is in good hands with 20th Century Studios under the Disney banner.  I never thought I would ever say THAT.  I was always worried about Disney watering it down.  They didn’t.  They went the opposite.  This movie goes hard and it’s all the better for it.  I think this is one of my favorite movies of the year and I can’t wait for the TV show.  Fede Alvarez does it again.

Released: May 1998

Director: Roland Emmerich

Run Time: 139 Minutes

Rated PG-13

Distributor: Sony Pictures/Tri-Star Entertainment

Genre: Action/Science Fiction

Cast:
Matthew Broderick: Dr. Niko Tatopoulos
Jean Reno: Phillipe Roache
Maria Pitillo: Audrey Timmonds
Hank Azaria: Victor ‘Animal’ Palotti
Kevin Dunn: Colonel Hicks
Michael Lerner: Mayor Ebert
Harry Shearer: Charles Caiman

For 70 years, Godzilla has managed to entertain audiences around the world.  Even if you never saw a Godzilla movie, you knew who and what the character was.  Aside from James Bond, Godzilla’s the most recognizable character in pop culture.  It all stemmed from that little black and white flick in 1954.  Even though it was intended as a one-off film, it was so popular, more movies would end up being made.  During the 60 and 70s, Godzilla got a little bit silly, not that there’s anything wrong with that, but the stark contrast to the serious nature of the original film, the 70s-era Godzilla movies were more slip-stick funny.  Everybody wanted in on the action, so there were knock-offs and spoofs, but we also ended up getting video games and comics.  Godzilla was and still is a phenomenon.  When America wanted to try its hand at making a Godzilla picture…well…let’s just say it wasn’t exactly what was expected.

Godzilla 98 follows Dr. Niko Tatopoulos as he’s digging up irradiated earthworms at Chernobyl to prove the mutating effects that radiation could have on a species.  He’s immediately re-assigned when a Japanese fishing troller is attacked by an unknown force.  Arriving in Tahiti, Niko is shown footprints made from an unbelievably large animal.  They discover that the mysterious creature is heading towards New York City.  One of the things that made the original Godzilla film work as well as it did was that it wasn’t just a monster movie, but an allegory for the dangers of nuclear power.  The opening credits of this movie absolutely hammer it home.  If we’re being honest here, this isn’t a Godzilla movie.  More importantly, the creature here ISN’T Godzilla.  There were a lot of issues going on with the movie before it went into production.  Directors and writers kept changing, until Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin took charge.  Seemed like an interesting idea, right?  I mean, this dynamic writing-directing duo were riding high on the successes of Universal Solder(1992), Stargate(1994), and Independence Day(1996).  So, it would make sense for Emmerich to direct a disaster movie.  But here’s the problem: Emmerich’s ego got in the way.  He was never a fan of Godzilla and he didn’t respect it.  So, he and Devlin tossed out an earlier script that would’ve seen Godzilla be more of a heroic character like he was in the 70s.  Nope.  Also, instead of remaking the original film, Emmerich and Devlin simply made the creature an animal trying to survive.

Aside from the pre-production issues and rushed time schedule, this movie had an uphill battle the moment the marketing campaign started ramping up.  The studio’s intention, I believe, was to try and appeal to both fans of Godzilla and people who were not.  Unfortunately, the movie ended up alienating both camps.  Why?  First of all, the creature’s design.  It looked more like an overgrown iguana than the massive nuclear-powered beast that everybody knew and loved.  No, this creature was designed by effects artist Patrick Tatopoulos, and while I don’t think the design is bad, it’s not Godzilla.  Not even close.  On top of that, the CGI is extremely wonky.  Watching the movie recently in high-definition, a lot of the CGI does NOT hold up well.  Also, the film had serious issues with continuity when it came to the creature’s actual size.  Some shots had this thing feeling massive, but some made the beast look small.  When you’re making a kaiju movie, consistency is key.  Combine that with some truly horrendous cinematography, and you have one ugly movie.  The majority of the film is set at night during a massive rainstorm.

Let’s talk about the casting.  Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a movie so miscast in my entire life.  I’ve got nothing against the actors in this movie as they’re doing their damnedest to make the movie entertaining.  But Matthew Broderick as a nuclear biologist?  Uh…okay.  Maria Pitillo as Niko’s old flame?  Kevin Dunn and French actor Jean Reno are the only two actors in this movie that really lend it ANY kind of credibility.  There is little to no chemistry among the cast, especially between Broderick and Pitillo.  Hank Azaria and Harry Shearer, two phenomenal voice actors from The Simpsons were not really given much to do with.  Azaria plays Animal, the go-getting cameraman and Shearer plays Caiman, the sleazy, short-statured news  anchor.  The acting’s fine, but again, no chemistry and the writing for these characters is mostly abysmal.  The humor in the film is also highly dubious, as Emmerich and Devlin poked fun at Roger Ebert and Gene Siskel, with the characters of Mayor Ebert and his assistant, Gene.  Ebert and Siskel were notorious for hating on Emmerich’s movies.  The joke would’ve actually been funny if Mayor Ebert had either been eaten or stomped on.  That would’ve been amazing, but they didn’t do that, because they didn’t have the spine.

As someone who is a fan of David Arnold’s musical work, his stuff here is all over the place.  The music during the opening credits and when Zilla appears is truly epic.  But he’s clearly re-using similar themes that he used from Independence Day.  That’s not always unusual, we’ve seen other composers do it before: James Horner, John Williams, Bryan Tyler,  Alan Silvestri.  But here, it’s pretty obvious that Arnold didn’t really have the time for something truly memorable.

So, after all the crap that I’ve slung at this movie, I actually really like it.  Why?  First of all, the action sequences are pretty damned good.  The combination of CGI and miniatures is fun, and watching the US Army do more damage to New York than Zilla is pretty funny.  Even though the cinematography is kind of garbage, there’s no shaky cam and the lighting is good enough to see what’s going on.  That’s always a plus.  I’m not going to sugar-coat it, though: Godzilla 98 is a disaster.  It underperformed a bit at the box office, but it still made money, just not enough to make a sequel, which is what the film-makers were kind of hoping for.  That’s why they had the ending they did.  That said, the movie did get a follow-up in the form of an animated series which ran from 1998-2000.  It was actually better than the movie.  However, TOHO, the folks that made Godzilla in the first place were PISSED at Emmerich and company for taking such a beloved IP and basically trashing it.  When Tri-Star let the rights to Godzilla lapse in 2003, TOHO responded with Godzilla: Final Wars in which the 98 Zilla showed up only to get blown to smithereens by the OG Gojira.  It was glorious.

Again, I don’t actually hate this movie.  I had a lot of fun with it, and I’m a huge Godzilla fan.  Yeah, I preferred the guy-in-the-suit movies, but I think Godzilla 98 was fun enough if you took it on its own terms.  America would not make another Godzilla movie until the 2014 film, which was absolutely phenomenal.  Also, last year’s Godzilla: Minus One is the best Godzilla movie since 1954.  You can’t keep a good kaiju down.