Yes, and yes. The second is a direct sequel and relies on the events of the first for setup.
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There Are Actually TWO Trans Characters In Alien (1979)
In a preview of the bonus feature menus for the “Alien Legacy” box set posted to USENET, the bio for Dallas had him as being born female and Lambert as being born male, suggesting gender reassignment before the events in the movie. Negative fan reaction prompted this to be changed before production of the DVDs. Their bios now display their gender with “natural” in brackets behind it. — IMDB
Last-minute Alien facts
- We barely avoided Ridley Scott’s ****ing terrible alternate ending to Alien. The alien would have chomped off Ripley’s head, then spoken in her voice to leave a final starlog.
- Alien inspired your favorite video game franchise: Metroid! The female protagonist, Samus Aran, was created as a homage to Sigourney Weaver’s character, and a recurring alien antagonist, Ridley, was named in tribute to Ridley Scott.
- Alien also inspired your baby’s new favorite toy.
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The scene where Hudson asks Vazquez if she’s ever been mistaken for a man tho…
Fair enough.
For me, the homophobia and the casual slurs from her participation in a machismo culture are offensive, sure, but to me, those make the world building feel more authentic.
One film scholar described Vazquez as “the constructed gender image of the ‘in-between,’ the ‘designer dyke’: essentially a hyper-masculine female.”
One of Mulvey’s key theories is that classical Hollywood cinema is aimed at a presumed male spectator, who identifies with a male character’s gaze.
For example, there’s that scene where Ripley comes out in her underwear:
[Vazquez] gazes at Ripley in a sexual manner as she reacts to the image by commenting “que bonita,” meaning “how beautiful."
In this example for the male spectator to gratify with the gaze, they must identify with the gaze of a female character. Therefore the positioning, in this case, provides a subversion to the classical gaze, not a male heterosexual gaze, but in fact a lesbian gaze.
This is due to the lesbian threat towards masculinity, and Vasquez’s goal to be powerful through her adopted machismo. The spectacle of her muscled arms and shoulders rather than her cleavage establishes her as the lesbian Other within the male gaze.
There is even the payoff that pursuing the extremes of masculinity–even permitting its bigotry toward herself–did nothing to save Vazquez from a gruesome end.
I just can’t believe these are all the same person (Aliens, Terminator 2, Titanic)
I think this is the wrong way to look at it. This is not meant to be a list of films you’d suggest to your friend who is just getting into film, but about people who have watched a lot more movies than you or I and spent a lot lot more time thinking/writing about it, telling you which ones meant more for them.
Ive never seen Jeanne Dielman but I absolutely believe all the reviews I’ve seen of ppl saying they personally connected with the film and don’t think this has much to do with snobbery.
Also “hating film criticism” because it defends films out of the mainstream is basically just anti intellectualism and not really defensible. It’s obviously fine for someone to not watch that many movies or only watch recent Hollywood releases etc, but then to be offended or angry when other people do differently and think this can only be out of snobbery is not very smart.
(to be clear im not saying this describes you).
(Personally I’m just happy that this ranking might finally motivate me to watch this movie…)
My favourite movie of the last decade is a German movie from 2014 called “Phoenix”.
It’s set in 1945 Berlin, the main character is a Jewish woman returning from the camps who just got facial surgery (presumably from being disfigured). She then looks for her lost husband.
(Main plot is then the spoiler below which is revealed 1/3 through)
Turns out that her husband was the one who betrayed her to the Nazis. Upon seeing her, he is struck by the resemblance to his dead wife and hires her to play her own part in order to get to the inheritance.
It is really an amazing movie that works on many levels (emotional and political), and that I would absolutely recommend to anyone who is curious about current European cinema. The final scene might be my all time favourite movie ending.
(It’s also a variation on (the last part of) Vertigo which is always a plus for me…given your later post in this thread this might not be the case for you lol…)
(And if some of you like it you can check out the director (Petzold)'s other movies, they’re all pretty good).
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Risky business payed off in high school. We got to laughing after crossing some bumpy railroad tracks…
Please watch Winona Ryder’s new movie Gone In the Night. Wtfffffffffffff.
Upon arriving at a remote cabin for a getaway, a woman and her boyfriend discover another couple already staying there. They decide to share the rental for the night, but the boyfriend’s disappearance sparks a race for answers.
It’s like Memento meets Barbarian. You won’t really understand what’s going on until like 90 seconds before the credits.
Lukas is a prisoner in his own body. As a pre-op transgendered person, he is constantly finding himself trapped in uncomfortable, compromising positions. His best friend, Ine introduces him to the gay scene in Cologne where he meets the confident and gorgeous, Fabio. ROMEOS forgoes stereotypes and conventions to offer an honest examination of basic of human conditions: friendship, sex, and love.
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Some of Fassbinder’s films were very good imo, though not to everyone’s taste.
Shouldn’t need to mention German Expressionist Lang, a huge influence oh Hitchcock, Reed, Welles etc.
There’s a pretty cool museum in Berlin on the history of German cinema.
The better material is from the 1920s where they were really on par with Hollywood in terms of size and quality of the productions. (Iirc there’s a bunch of costumes/sets from the expressionist period which are cool to see even without being familiar with the specific movies)
Then after that period, for some reason (woke mind virus) their most talented directors left for the states, German cinema dropped in quality and the rest of the museum is not so interesting (there’s one room for propagandist Leni Riefenstahl, also some stuff on the later guys like Fassbinder/Herzog/Wenders which I’m not super familiar with, and which are less museum friendly anyway).
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Billy Wilder, one of the GOAT American directors, was a German movie maker (technically an Austrian working in Berlin) before emigrating
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James Cameron:
We’ve got to remind people who have been glutted on content by all these streaming channels trying to grab market share by just throwing crazy money at content production and doing theatrical movie quality imaging and visual effects in streaming content, it’s really changed the rules. It’s like well, why do I need to go to the movies when I can see something like The Rings of Power at home?The answer is in my mind, when you’re at home you got a remote and you’re in control and you can multitask, you don’t interrupt the flow of your life to watch. And when you go to a movie theatre you make a conscious decision to interrupt the flow of your life and let it come in, flood into you, and hit you at a deeper level. I think we still want that.
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Too bad he is wasting the rare chance people go to the theatre with such mediocre films.
Re-watching Gremlins 2 for the first time in thirty years. This movie is a goddamn masterpiece, 5/5.
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Obligatory
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I love how Joe Dante basically made a sequel making fun of the original which he also directed and they’re both great but completely different tones.
Lost Highway > Mulholland Drive for Lynch movies imo, but that might because I have fond memories of teenage fantasies and Patricia Arquette in that movie. Also a totally killer soundtrack.