Page to Screen is a regular column in which Matt Melis explores how either a classic or contemporary work of literature made the sometimes triumphant, often disastrous leap from prose to film. This time, he plots his course for Mars.

Mark Watney gets rescued. That’s not intended as a spoiler. Anyone who reads even a single log entry from Andy Weir’s novel or watches the trailer for Ridley Scott’s adaptation knows from Sol 1 that the stranded astronaut won’t perish on Mars. Both the novel and film secure that comforting tether to our spacesuits, reassuring us with a little tug whenever we think all hope might be drifting off into orbit. Even during its bleakest moments, The Martian, book or film, never trades on the question of whether or not Watney will survive, but rather on how he will manage to do so. It’s a space thriller whose thrills come not from alien encounters, rocket blasts, or asteroid bombardments, but from the relentless grind of staying alive one Sol at a time all alone on an inhospitable planet.

In the novel, soon after satellites discover that Watney’s alive, Teddy Sanders, head of NASA, looks to the skies and asks: “What must it be like? … He’s stuck out there. He thinks he’s totally alone and that we all gave up on him. What kind of effect does that have on a man’s psychology? I wonder what he’s thinking right now.” Weir immediately cuts to a log entry from Watney: “How come Aquaman can control whales? They’re mammals! Makes no sense.” It’s a setup that travels 140 million miles for its punchline, one that earns a chuckle but evades the awe-inspiring question that makes the concept of The Martian so mind-blowing: What must it be like to be stranded all alone on another planet?

(Read: How Accurate is The Martian? We Asked NASA)

Weir does touch upon the psychological and emotional gravity of Watney’s perilous, unprecedented circumstances, but he barely scratches Mars’ rust-colored surface on the matter. His novel reads like MacGyver on Mars: beat-by-beat genre fiction where problem begets problem until, as Scott’s Watney (Matt Damon) explains, “You solve enough problems, and you get to go home.” It’s meticulous, exhaustive, problem-solving fun on a faraway planet, but often feels as thin as Mars’ atmosphere when it comes to placing readers inside Watney’s helmeted headspace.

Robert Zemeckis’ Cast Away, though not set in space, offers the most obvious big-budget Hollywood parallel to The Martian. In that film, FedEx employee Chuck Noland (Tom Hanks) washes up on an island with little chance of a search party ever reaching him. As the movie wears on, our fascination shifts from Noland’s physical survival – spear fishing, making fire, and performing amateur dentistry on himself – to his internal struggle to endure so that he might be with his fiancée (Helen Hunt) again. Even when he strikes up a friendship with a volleyball he names “Wilson,” we indulge rather than judge. Zemeckis draws us so close to the character that we understand him, even as he clings to life in a situation entirely alien to us.

This isn’t to say that Scott needs to give Watney an antique watch with a picture of his girlfriend in order for us to understand and share in his singular experience. But any film adaptation of The Martian that strives to be more than a series of technological obstacles faced and hurdled needs to reveal more of Mark Watney than Weir’s novel does. And indeed, Scott’s triumph is that his film answers Teddy Sanders’ question (“What must it be like?”) without sacrificing any of Weir’s delightful, scientific high adventure.

One important change Scott and screenwriter Drew Goddard make in their adaptation is beginning the film with the sandstorm in which Watney gets impaled by an antennae while the crew aborts the Mars hab. The scene smartly remains faithful to Weir’s beautifully paced action sequence – a chapter that doesn’t come until nearly halfway through the novel. Not only does this event thrust us into the movie, but we also come to understand early on the bond between Watney and crew. The camaraderie we witness makes the impending loneliness all the more stark, and it also amplifies the intense emotional weight of Commander Lewis’ decision to leave Mars without confirming Watney’s death. The resulting guilt acts as an albatross throughout the film, one that Lewis and crew can only shed by saving their crewmate. The scene also anchors Watney to our world. We’ve seen him with people he loves, depends upon, and binds together – people whose lives will forever be changed having lost him. While the human instinct to cheat death naturally drives the stranded astronaut, Scott’s film also suggests that part of Watney needs to survive for his friends — to be with them again and absolve them — an idea even we earthlings can appreciate.

Weir’s novel relies almost exclusively on NASA log entries to relay Watney’s perspective. In some ways, the log can be viewed as Watney’s “Wilson.” Yes, he’s documenting his mission (needing his story to be told), but he also acknowledges that he’s carrying out a conversation. The problem is that these official logs, while far from being purely technical rundowns, rarely convey where Watney’s head resides beyond the latest phase in his evolving plans. Scott and Goddard opt to use these logs far more selectively: either to present key status updates (e.g. Watney’s initial number crunching regarding how long he can survive on Mars) or to highlight the astronaut’s endearingly smart-ass personality, often in mockumentary-style cutaways (e.g. berating Lewis for her extensive disco collection). The film’s freedom to abandon the log structure allows Scott to carve out several moments that perfectly convey Watney’s emotional state. In one scene, Watney can’t suppress a thankful grin as he trades texted barbs with his crewmates for the first time from the rover. Aside from watching Happy Days reruns (thanks, Lewis!), it’s his first real moment of normalcy since being stranded on Mars. In another scene, after the air lock on the hab blows and his entire potato crop freezes instantly, we watch him simmer in the rover until boiling over into a raging “God, god, god!” outburst. Breaking away from the log format lets Scott treat Watney as more than just a Martian guinea pig traversing the unknown. We feel the elation of the small victories and the devastation of his many life-threatening setbacks.

On Sol 69, Watney logs: “All around me there was nothing but dust, rocks, and endless empty desert in all directions. The planet’s famous red color is from iron oxide coating everything. So it’s not just a desert. It’s a desert so old it’s literally rusting.” It’s one of the few instances in The Martian where Weir attempts to describe the vast emptiness surrounding Watney. Scott, on the other hand, never lets us forget this perspective, beginning each Sol with an expansive shot of desolate Martian terrain. Forget the 140 million miles separating Mars from Earth; the isolation on a small portion of this planet alone is unfathomable. Scott’s shots effectively make us feel like there must be a conversion chart that can translate kilometers of empty Martian desert into degrees of human loneliness. Several key visuals Scott includes also hammer home the reality of Watney’s tenuous chances of survival. We quickly recognize that that first tiny, green sprout in Watney’s hab potato patch represents hope — a single sprig of greenery being the difference between an infinitesimal chance at life and certain death. Later, just before Watney abandons the hab and heads for the Schiaparelli rendezvous with the MAV (Mars Ascent Vehicle), Scott shows the astronaut emerging naked from a shower — gaunt, gray, almost alien-like. What Weir’s novel treats as strict caloric rationing, Scott shows as really just a euphemism for slowly starving to death.

While Goddard’s script and Scott’s visuals collaboratively thrust us into Mars’ orbit, Damon’s performance allows us to actually land on its red powder surface alongside Watney. Damon captures the astronaut’s jabbing sense of humor perfectly, but that’s the simple part of the role. The Martian has the peculiar quality of being a thriller with a lot of time on its hands — desperation and long bouts of tedium always coexisting. So much of Damon’s performance takes place in a spacesuit, trudging across rugged terrain or simply waiting. His most affecting scene in the entire film finds him sitting on a hill and staring out across the barren planet as his voiceover requests that Lewis break the news to his parents should the rescue plan fail. Damon manages to tell us all we need to know about Mark Watney in that thoughtful stare through his space helmet. Later, when Watney prepares to be launched into space to intercept with the Hermes, we find Damon’s face scrunched in tears, making the tension of the moment palpable. Everything we’ve watched him endure, his entire improbable journey, comes down to this one terrifying rocket blast into orbit. It’d be too much to withstand if it wasn’t for that aforementioned tether tugging at us, reminding us of that promise of a happy ending.

Weir’s novel ends abruptly. Watney gets rescued in space, he espouses some generalities about human solidarity, and then we hit the author page. Our man is rescued — nothing more to see here. However, because Scott has managed to bring us much closer to Watney than the novel does, the director knows we need the catharsis of seeing our hero back safely on Earth — embarking on a new “Day 1.” So much of Weir’s concept remains beyond our wildest imaginations. We can barely begin to wrap our brains around that initial question: “What must it be like?” Consider Scott’s The Martian a blastoff towards those faraway answers.

Crummy news for anyone hoping to see the on-screen reunion of Lt. Ellen Ripley and Corporal Dwayne Hicks: Director Neill Blomkamp’s reboot sequel to Aliens has been cocooned.

The District-9 filmmaker had been working on the project since January. His posting of concept art to Instagram led 20th Century Fox to officially on board him. This morning, however, Blomkamp announced the unfortunate change of plans via Twitter:

It’s okay, though. Ridley Scott has finally moved on from The Martian and is ready to start filming Alien: Paradise Lost, the first of three sequels everyone wants to Prometheus. Maybe its alleged ties to Ripley should suffice. Who knows.

It’s unclear why Blomkamp’s own film was put on hold, but it’s safe to assume Scott’s renewed interest in the franchise had something to do with it. What we do know is that “other things” doesn’t exactly bode too well for Blomkamp these days, at least if we’re to consider how this year’s Chappie turned out. Sheesh.

For the past two months, there was a strong hush-hush reason why Neill Blompkamp’s Alien sequel wasn’t firing on all cylinders, and now that reason is becoming all too transparent: Ridley Scott. With The Martian drifting far behind him, the English filmmaker is putting all his Xenomorph eggs in one cocoon and going into full cryosleep with the Alien franchise.

“I’m trying to keep this for myself,” Scott admitted to IGN. “I let the other one [Alien] get away from me — I shouldn’t have … I’m trying to re-resurrect the beast and let if off the hook for a while because I’m coming back into the back-end of Alien 1. I’m gradually getting to Alien 1.”

In other words…

To be fair, his 1979 original remains the best of the series and one of the most integral slices of science-fiction to ever hit the silver screen. Having said that, his future plans for Prometheus 2, known officially as Alien: Paradise Lost, and the franchise itself are questionable at best:

“Prometheus 2 will start getting shot in February and I’ve already begun now so I know what the script is,” he further details. “Then there will be another one after that and then maybe we’ll back into Alien 1, as to why? Who would make such a dreadful thing?”

Oddly enough, Prometheus screenwriter Damon Lindelof, who took the heavy brunt of that film’s criticism, recently spoke with The Hollywood Reporter and discussed how the original script by Jon Spaihts was titled Alien Zero and featured “facehuggers, and xenomorphs, and eggs.” It was he who tried to avoid making it a prequel, as he explained:

“…the language of Alien Zero was very much an Alien reboot, in my opinion,” he said, adding: “I had heard [Prometheus] was a prequel, and there’s a problem with prequels; there’s something I don’t like about prequels, which is there’s an inevitability, that you’re just connecting dots.”

Lindelof digressed more on his process of reworking Spaihts’ script and praised a number of facets, specifically the “creation myth”, which he called “an interesting idea”:

“…because the android was there, and he’s there with his creators, and they’re seeking out their creators,” he contended. “And he’s not impressed by his creators. The android, he’s the smartest guy in the room, and I was like, ‘I’m going to take those ideas, and I’m going to say that’s what the movie is, and we don’t even get to anything, any familiar Alien language, until the end of this movie and if there was a sequel to Prometheus, it would not be Alien  — it would go off in its own direction. And therefore it would be exciting to watch because we’re not just connecting dots.”

Based on the interview, it sounds as if the 2012 blockbuster suffered from a case of Too Many Cooks. Fortunately for the ailing Lindelof, he’s not attached to the script for Alien: Paradise Lost, which is currently being revised by Scott and scribe John Logan, as Variety reports.

Still with us? Good. In related news, Blomkamp has since moved on to fresh, new ground and is looking to adapt Thomas Sweterlitsch’s yet-to-be-published time travel novel, The Gone World. Good for him.

What did we learn? This won’t be the last update you’ll read about Alien.

In space, no one can hear you swap titles, which is exactly what Ridley Scott and 20th Century Fox has done with Prometheus 2, formerly known as Alien: Paradise Lost, and now officially titled Alien: Covenant.

After Scott leaked word of the title change last week at the AFI Film Festival, the studio went ahead and made it a guarantee this morning, even including an official synopsis, an official release date, and an official image (see above). Official!

Here’s the synopsis:

Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created in ALIEN with ALIEN: COVENANT, the second chapter in a prequel trilogy that began with PROMETHEUS — and connects directly to Scott’s 1979 seminal work of science fiction. Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world — whose sole inhabitant is the “synthetic” David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.

Now, that’s a lot to consider, but the key words to pull out are “sole inhabitant,” followed by Fassbender’s David character, which should then lead you to wonder, “Well, what the hell happened to Noomi Rapace’s Elizabeth Shaw?” Good question.

As The Playlist hints, Mission: Impossible: Rogue Nation star Rebecca Ferguson was apparently being eyed for a female lead, which may mean that Rapace is out, especially if there’s that whole new crew for the Colony to be cocooned. Hard to tell, but the omission is certainly suspect.

We’ll likely know soon enough, however, as shooting begins in February for an October 6th, 2017 release. So, stay alert.

This month, fans and publications worldwide are sharing year-end accolades for the best in music, film, TV, froyo, et al. And that includes the Leader of the Free World, President Barack Obama.

In a new interview with PEOPLE, the President revealed his favorite song, and surprisingly enough, it’s not his Coldplay collaboration, nor anything off the Pope’s prog-rock LP. Instead, it’s Kendrick Lamar’s “How Much a Dollar Cost”, the religious-rooted deep cut from his latest opus, To Pimp A Butterfly.

Additionally, President Obama revealed Ridley Scott’s The Martian to be his favorite film of 2015. First Lady Michelle Obama opted for Inside Out.

Below, revisit “How Much a Dollar Cost”. Then, make sure to check out our own picks for the year’s best albums and songs. Spoiler: Kendrick keeps on winning.

Note: This feature was originally published back in December 2015.

On Sunday night, the 2016 Golden Globe Awards will air, and it’ll be time yet again to gather around and watch as the brightest stars of TV and film get roaring drunk in each other’s company, all while that strange shadow organization known as the Hollywood Foreign Press Association distributes statues to the most famous people they can get to show up.

(Again, how else do you explain that Best Picture nom for The Tourist a few years back?)

Most importantly, the Globes are the gateway to the televised awards season, all leading up to the Oscars. So, in the first of what will likely be a number of prediction pieces, your friendly neighborhood film staff at Consequence of Sound has put together our predictions for who we think will take home a Globe this year, and who we think is the most deserving among those nominated. We’ll even toss out a few snubs that we found particularly glaring.

Feel free to use the following as a handy primer when you’re picking your own ballots while drinking in a living room somewhere, the way we most likely will be as well. You can even share your own picks below.

–Dominick Suzanne-Mayer
Film Editor

Feature artwork by Sad Truth Supply

Writing an introduction to a list of the best David Bowie songs in film is a very different task than it would have been yesterday. At the moment, it feels that every glimpse we have of this remarkable creature, every image and every note, has become more precious than it was before. To write a list and not include everything feels inadequate. To write a list at all feels small. But making art, experience art, sharing art—that’s important. It’s important on days most ordinary, and certainly on days like the one we’re living right now. Art reaches us alone and together. It’s solitary and shared. It changes us individually, just as it links us as one.

The coupling of one artist’s work with another’s—and in the case of film, the work of many others—brings new things out of both. “Moonage Daydream” is different now, because of both Guardians of the Galaxy and We Live in Public. “Space Oddity” changes and is changed by Mad Men and Mr. Deeds, and Bowie himself credited 2001: A Space Odyssey as being one source of the song’s inspiration. None of those pairings, some blissful and some bizarre, is included in this list, which just goes to show how long such a list could be—and that’s excluding things he didn’t himself sing, from “Lust for Life” (and thus Trainspotting) to “Walk on the Wild Side” (and Hedwig and the Angry Inch).

David Bowie made other artists better. He made art better. He made us feel, like the kids in The Perks of Being a Wallflower, infinite. I think he blew our minds.

–Allison Shoemaker
Staff Writer

10. “Fashion”

Clueless (1995)

With all due respect to “Kids in America”, Amy Heckerling’s wicked update on Emma should have just started with Bowie. Clueless looks at teenage life through a lens of fantastical privilege, and it starts with Cher (Alicia Silverstone) browsing her wardrobe on a touch-screen. Now it looks dated, but at the time, it was absurdly unreal. What made it work? “Fashion”. Imagine something too fabulous to exist, and Bowie’s the only possible soundtrack. “Fashion” sounded like the coolest of the cool songs in a really cool movie when I was 11. It would never have occurred to me that it pre-dated the film, that the song was the same age as Cher. Absurder still: it was by the same guy who sang that “Changes” song my mom was always playing, and both of them were also Jareth the Goblin King. My tiny mind was blown.

–Allison Shoemaker

Now that the Academy Awards have passed, director Ridley Scott can finally lift off from his Oscar-less The Martian, and touch down on the horrors that await him in Alien: Covenant.

Production begins next month in Australia, and Fox is already excited to get this sucker out. So much so that they’ve moved up the original October 6th, 2017 release date to August 4th, 2017. If you recall, that’s the same weekend they released Fantastic Four last year, though given the Alien property and the SEO-friendly title, the odds should be favorable.

Also of note are a few cast additions. While Noomi Rapace sadly won’t be returning, Michael Fassbender will reprise his role as creepy android David, as previously reported, and he’ll be visited this time around by Katherine Waterston, Demian Bichir, Danny McBride, Jussie Smollett, Amy Seimetz, Carmen Ejogo, Callie Hernandez, and reportedly Billy Crudup.

As Deadline reports, Crudup is in “advanced negotiations,” which means he should be a lock fairly soon. Nevertheless, that’s some cast, especially the inclusion of McBride. The prospect of seeing the former Kenny Powers roaming around dreary halls and fighting aliens is enough for this writer to forgive the atrocious plot holes of Prometheus.

In related news, Fox also slapped a date on Shane Black’s highly anticipated Predator reboot, which is now slated to hunt audiences come March 2nd, 2018. There’s even a swanky graphic to enjoy:

Remember “Hell’s Club” from last year? Back in September, editor wunderkind Antonio Maria Da Silva of AMDS Films pieced together one hell of a pop culture mashup video that won over many nerds’ afternoons. With ease he welded together the worlds of Star Wars, Collateral, Scarface, The Terminator, Cocktail, Trainspotting, Robocop, Carlito’s Way, Saturday Night Fever, and so many more. It was overwhelming and required multiple viewings.

Well, he’s back with a sequel, and he’s doubled the film to a weighty 18 minutes. As expected, many familiar faces return — namely, Ewan McGregor’s Obi Wan Kenobi and Al Pacino’s Tony Montana — but there are several new additions to the mix, from Daft Punk to Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley to Sigourney Weaver’s Ellen Ripley to more Bonds than any nightclub could ever handle. Basic Instinct’s Michael Douglas even has a stare down with Casino’s De Niro.

If you have the time (and c’mon, you totally do), check it out below. We’re admittedly partial to the inclusion of Jack and Rose from Titanic. It’s just so good to see them together again.

House of Cards star Robin Wright is in final talks to appear in the sequel to Blade Runner. The Alcon Entertainment project has already landed two other stars in Ryan Gosling and Harrison Ford, but Wright has claimed the first of three major female roles, according to the Hollywood Reporter.

Wright’s name has been attached to the project for weeks, but her commitments to House of Cards held up negotiations. Not only does Wright star as Claire Underwood in the award-winning political drama, but she has directed seven episodes and served as executive producer of season four. Wright is also currently slated to star alongside Gal Gadot in Warner Bros.’ forthcoming Wonder Woman.

Other details surrounding the Blade Runner sequel have begun to emerge as well. We know that the sci-fi project will be directed by Denis Villeneuve (Sicario) from a script written by Hampton Fancher and Michael Green. Fancher, who co-wrote the 1982 original, is said to have worked off an idea he formulated with director Ridley Scott. The story supposedly takes place several decades after the first film, with Ford returning as expert Blade Runner Rick Deckard.

Principal photography for the sci-fi project is scheduled to begin in July.

When Ridley Scott started focusing more and more on Alien: Covenant, Neill Blomkamp’s proposed Alien sequel essentially fell into hypersleep.

At the time, the District 9 director insisted it was “kinda holding / pending” and that he was moving on to “other things.” As such, most assumed that Fox put the kibosh on the spectacle, which wouldn’t be too surprising given the critical and commercial consensus on Chappie.

Now, however, Sigourney Weaver has come out and shed some light on the project, and it’s the type of good news that might even make Private First Class William L. Hudson feel optimistic. During a recent appearance at VMware, Lt. Ellen Ripley spoke highly of the sequel, stating:

Well, I *think* it is. Ridley asked Neill NOT to make our Alien til after Prometheus 2. He (Ridley) wanted his movie to shoot and be released first. But it’s an AMAZING script, and Neill and I are REALLY excited about doing it. We’re doing other things until we can get going on that. I’d be really surprised if we DIDN’T do it, because it’s such a great script, and we love working together. So, it’s just going to take a little bit longer to get out to you, but it’ll be worth the wait.

With Alien: Covenant due out August 7, 2017, that would mean Blomkamp likely wouldn’t be able to have his sequel surface until at least 2018, and that’s if Fox doesn’t move ahead with Scott’s proposed sequels. Though, one would think they’d be jonesing to get a Weaver-related sequel out.

We’ll see. In related news, next Tuesday, April 26th, is Alien Day. So if you haven’t picked up tickets for the double features going down across the nation, now’s the time. After all, you wouldn’t want to have to shimmy your way into one of the screenings now, would you?

Update: For Alien Day, Blomkamp posted another piece of concept art! This time, it’s an older and much wiser-looking Newt. Take a gander below:

[Source: Bloody Disgusting]

It was 1979, and the New Hollywood was winding down. After the huge success of the miniscule-budgeted Easy Rider, the studio system had opened the doors to young, hungry filmmakers and put aside its obsession with Biblical and historical epics. For the entirety of the 1970s, it was a cinematic gold rush for up-and-coming cineastes. While the older masters like Kubrick and Hitchcock were still producing strong and thought-provoking films, Hollywood put its faith in the talents of movie brats like Martin Scorsese, Brian DePalma, and Steven Spielberg. For the first time in many years, creativity was invited and the status was decidedly not quo.

The more things change, the more they stay the same. Out of this era of unchecked artistic freedom came the Blockbuster, that behemoth of clichés and popcorn. The Biblical and historical epics were replaced by the summer tentpoles. Spielberg and George Lucas completely changed the playing field with Jaws and Star Wars. Both films took B-movie tropes, repackaged them into A-list fare, and those monster movies and space actioners made their move away from the dingy drive-ins and into the Hollywood mainstream.

So again, it was 1979, and it was the perfect moment for a new type of horror to be born. I apologize for the tired metaphor, but it’s Alien Day, okay? At the end of the decade, Heaven’s Gate had not yet put the final nail in the New Hollywood’s coffin, but the studios already had eyes on the future. It was a strange moment for American cinema.  Hollywood still wanted the freshness of young talent, but it wanted it big. And that’s when a guy named Dan O’Bannon came along.

Like his fellow movie brats of the time, O’Bannon honed his skills at the prestigious USC School of Cinematic Arts. There he met and befriended a popular kid named John Carpenter. Carpenter went on to make a few other movies, but that’s a different story. After making their first feature together, Dark Star, they began to brainstorm a new intergalactic monster. Their follow-up film was to be called Star Beast, and it told the tale of a space mining crew attacked by a creature of unknown origin. Sound familiar?

O’Bannon and Carpenter had a small falling out, and Carpenter left to make Assault on Precinct 13 and Halloween. No big deal. Carpenter told O’Bannon to keep the Star Beast idea, so along with his friend Ronald Shusett, O’Bannon penned a draft, and it found its way to 20^th Century Fox. Again, this was perfect timing, with Alejandro Jodorowsky’s bloated adaptation of Dune falling apart in pre-production at the studio.

As Dune’s production faltered, 20^th Century Fox was looking for a new project. O’Bannon, who was supervising special effects on Dune, just happened to have a script on hand. And so the film went into production immediately. The studio transferred the majority of the crew (including production designer H.R. Giger) to the newly re-titled Alien and hired an untested British director named Ridley Scott. Okay, we all know how the rest turned out. It’s great. The sequels are … a mixed bag. But how did this relatively simple horror flick become a cultural phenomenon deserving of its own holiday?

It’s all about the Giger. The script is solid and the rewrite by Walter Hill is basically Alien haiku. I recommend it with a glass of bourbon. But that Giger, though. The painter’s contributions to this film (and the modern horror diaspora) cannot be overstated. He created a creature and environment that are difficult to even comprehend, much of this confusion coming from Giger’s mixing of gender and living and nonliving beings.

The Xenomorph is a walking contradiction. Looking closely at its body, it has phalli on its back and vaginal shapes on its torso. It is something unknowable, something that does not fit any natural taxonomy. At the same time it is totemic, a being older than time itself. Like a great Lovecraft monster, it is indifferent to human pleas for mercy. While Giger’s creature was just a man in a suit, it represented our cosmic fears that, in the end, we are just animals screaming into a soundless vacuum.

At the same time, human sexuality and birthing are at the core of Alien. The design for the Xenomorph and the derelict spacecraft present a distorted view of human reproduction. After all, think about the most memorable scene in the film (at least for non-fans). Kane (John Hurt) has just woken from a long sleep. He had a nasty little facehugger clinging to his … well, his face. Now, the small bug is dead and Kane is having a nice breakfast with his friends. Then an alien pops out of his chest. Just pops right out. Actually, it bursts out, spraying blood and viscera all over Veronica Cartwright. Man.

As a man, there is an inherent fear I have of the birthing process. I know it’s beautiful and wonderful, but I skipped both days in Health class when we watched the live birth. I stayed in the waiting room watching Bob’s Burgers on Netflix while my nephew was born. This scene in Alien is so terrifying and so lasting because it subverts the “natural” order of things. There’s more to be said about the society that has created these hierarchies, but, for now, it scares the living crap out of me and many. There is something “wrong” about the scene that stays with the viewer.

Then, there’s Ridley Scott just directing the heck out of this movie. Under another director’s supervision, Alien could have been a shlock fest. Under Scott, the film is filled with dread from the opening frame. We barely see the monster, but it’s always there, lurking around the next corner of the duct system. Showing the film to first-time viewers, many comment on how slow the film is. The film isn’t slow. Far from it. It is merely paced, and paced perfectly.

Alien is all about timing. Had it been made a few years earlier or a few years later, it would not have been made at the center of that perfect storm of New Hollywood creativity and blockbuster genre filmmaking. This was B horror on a large scale, with award-winning design. It imbued the genre film with thoughtful ruminations on humanity and its baser fears. It birthed a franchise of varying quality and, now, a national holiday.

In space, no one can hear you scream. Happy Alien Day, everyone.

Yeehaw! Ridley Scott will soon play cowboy and gallop out west with Wraiths of the Broken Land.

Even better, he’s reuniting his Oscar-nominated team behind last year’s The Martian. In other words, producer Simon Kinberg and scribe Drew Goddard will ride alongside him into the sun-scorched desert.

Just like they did with Andy Weir’s best-selling spacey survival novel, Twentieth Century Fox snagged the rights to S. Craig Zahler’s 2013 book which takes place in Mexico circa 1900. Here’s the official synopsis:

A brutal and unflinching tale that takes many of its cues from both cinema and pulp horror, Wraiths of the Broken Land is like no Western you’ve ever seen or read. Desperate to reclaim two kidnapped sisters who were forced into prostitution, the Plugfords storm across the badlands and blast their way through Hell. This gritty, character-driven piece will have you by the throat from the very first page and drag you across sharp rocks for its unrelenting duration. Prepare yourself for a savage Western experience that combines elements of Horror, Noir and Asian ultra-violence. You’ve been warned.

Blame it on Quentin Tarantino, the Coen Brothers, or even Vince Gilligan, but it would appear that Westerns are making a big comeback. Last year’s Bone Tomahawk fiddled around with the genre to brilliant effect, while Ti West will soon release his vintage stunner, In a Valley of Violence. So, it’ll be interesting to see Scott’s spin on it.

That won’t be for awhile, though, as he’s currently floating in space shooting Alien: Covenant.

[Source: The Hollywood Reporter]

Right now, director Ridley Scott is busy at work in Sydney, Australia filming his sequel to Prometheus, Alien: Covenant. Although the story’s being kept under wraps and they’re shooting at various undisclosed locations, that never stops paparazzi from snapping up shots of the lavish sets.

Which is why we’re being spoiled with a handful of set photos from the upcoming sequel. As The Daily Mail reports, filming is underway at a remote quarry near the landmark city, and one savvy photographer was able to capture some of the magic — or, shall we say, nightmares. This stuff looks terrifying.

Judging from the photos, it would appear that the next unlucky flight crew in the Alien universe lands on a scorched planet of sorts, one that isn’t too different from the lava-leveled city of Pompeii. Those are burnt bodies, frozen in terror and panic, and if you look closely you can see they’re not exactly human.

Another shot hints of a large forest and the scope of those tree trunks are exemplified by nearby crew. Elsewhere, large stone structures and statues litter the area, falling in line with what actor Michael Fassbender recently dubbed “an old-school element where things look battered, like the original Star Wars.”

Alien: Covenant hits theaters August 4th, 2017. Directed by Scott and written by Michael Green, John Logan, and Jack Paglen, the film stars Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Demian Bichir, Danny McBride, Jussie Smollett, Amy Seimetz, Carmen Ejogo, Callie Hernandez, and Billy Crudup.

Here’s the synopsis:

Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created in ALIEN with ALIEN: COVENANT, the second chapter in a prequel trilogy that began with PROMETHEUS — and connects directly to Scott’s 1979 seminal work of science fiction. Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world — whose sole inhabitant is the “synthetic” David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.

A lot of times it’s hard to tell how a movie will do, or how the public will react to it, before it comes out. For those of us who were around 25 years ago, you’ll probably remember that Thelma & Louise hit a big nerve. Their names became synonymous with female empowerment, and the film became a litmus test for how men and women viewed each other.

Screenwriter Callie Khouri was “completely surprised, shocked” by the reaction Thelma & Louise caused, good and bad, and there were plenty of arguments for and against the movie. Thelma & Louise made the cover of Time, it was debated on Crossfire, and it was called everything from “the last great film about women” in The Atlantic to “a paean to transformative violence” with “an explicit fascist theme” in US News & World Report. (Rush Limbaugh even called Khouri a “feminazi.”)

As Louise herself, Susan Sarandon, told Entertainment Weekly, “We thought we were doing a Butch Cassidy or a Jules et Jim. Not making some kind of statement.” And as Thelma, Geena Davis, added, “It was overwhelming. It was massive. We were on the cover of Time magazine in five seconds: ‘Why it strikes a nerve.’ Very negative editorials. ‘Oh my God, now the world is ruined. The women have guns.’”

Khouri herself mainly wanted to write “a powerful, moving story that would be entertaining,” and she told the Washington Post at the time, “If you’re looking for a feminist manifesto, you will be disappointed.”

Yet Ridley Scott saw deeper and bigger layers from the beginning. As he told Vanity Fair, he saw Thelma & Louise as “epic … the proscenium – the landscape – was the third big character in the movie, and the film is an odyssey.” Reading the screenplay, Scott realized, “It had substance, it had a voice, and it had a great outcome, which you could never change. Their decision was courageous, to carry on the journey and not give in.”

Now that the initial controversy is long behind us, and we can view the movie on its own terms, Thelma & Louise still holds up very well 25 years later. Nobody involved knew that the film would stir up such a strong debate in society while they were making it, and it’s remarkable the uproar it caused with people of both sexes, making Thelma & Louise an even bigger and deeper story than Ridley Scott envisioned it when he first read it.

Two women go on a crime spree. That’s how the idea of Thelma & Louise first popped into Khouri’s mind in 1988. She was working for a video production company at the time, and like a lot of good ideas, it came to her late at night.

“I was pulling up in front of my house at 3:30 in the morning after an awful rock video shoot,” she recalls. “A day on a music video is 24 hours, so I was probably in my 27th hour. The idea kind of came to me.”

And funny enough, working in the music video world may have been a small catalyst in creating Thelma & Louise. “In order to get my karma straight about women, I had to write this script,” Khouri told the Village Voice. “When you become known in the business for producing videos that more often than not have naked women writhing in front of the camera for no reason to not such interesting music, you eventually have to look at what you’re doing.”

In addition, Khouri had to suffer several incidents of sexual harassment in her life that helped shape the film as well. One time, an old man yelled an offensive comment at her in a passing car, and “all of the sudden, I was filled with a rage I didn’t know I possessed. I was not a human being in front of this guy. I was like, if I had a gun in my hand, I probably would have raised it, and if not fired it, at least made him think I was going to. And it would have happened (snaps her fingers) that fast.”

There was also a time when a truck driver spewed an obscenity at her, which inspired the scene where Thelma & Louise blew up the gas truck. “I think if you talk to pretty much any woman who’s ever driven down a road, she’s going to tell you that guys making lewd gestures from trucks is as common an occurrence as you could imagine. You’ve got to just shake your head in utter disbelief. What, I’m going to pull over? Maybe there are people that do, but I don’t know any of them!”

Khouri had never written a screenplay before, and the six months it took her to write the script were “the most fun I had ever had in my life, bar none. It was such a pure experience. There was no self-censorship there, no second-guessing. From a creative standpoint, it was the freest I had ever been in my life.”

Khouri wanted to direct the film herself on a low budget, about three million, and she originally wanted Frances McDormand and Holly Hunter in the leads. “I wrote it to be a low-budget film,” Khouri says. “I was working production at the time, so I was very clear about how the money was going to be spent and how much it was going to cost to do it. That’s what music video producing is. It’s not a creative endeavor from a producing standpoint. It’s a very nuts-and-bolts kind of operation.”

Then Ridley Scott got ahold of the script with the intention of producing, but he soon grew to love Thelma & Louise and eventually became the director. (Bob Rafelson, Richard Donner, and Kevin Reynolds were all potential candidates to direct the film, and they all turned it down.) Ultimately, Thelma & Louise cost a reported $16.5 million, which was pretty low budget for a major studio film, and it’s practically an indie film budget by today’s standards.

Scott essentially shot the first draft, and as he mentioned earlier, he boldly kept the ending, which very easily could have been changed or mangled in the Hollywood development process. (Meryl Streep was up for Thelma & Louise, and she wanted one of them to live at the end.)

There were people who said to Khouri, “How are you going to change the ending? You can’t have them die at the end.” There were others who told her, “You can’t have your main character murder anybody in the first 10 pages and expect anybody to have sympathy for them.”

As Khouri explains, “I was in a place in my life where I just had nothing to lose by sticking to my guns.” Thelma & Louise has a lot of tone shifts that go from comedy to tragedy, and Khouri continues, “I think you can pretty much take people anywhere if you have an emotional logic. I always felt that James L. Brooks (Terms of Endearment) was able to achieve that, to have incredibly sad or poignant things happen in the midst of broad hilarity. If the tone makes sense to the person who’s doing it, it can make sense to the audience, as long as the person behind the wheel knows what they are doing.”

Contrary to what Khouri was told, audiences indeed felt sympathy for Thelma and Louise, and when Louise kills Thelma’s would be rapist, “I wanted the audience to understand it emotionally and at the same time realize that she had made a mistake from which there was no turning back and that she had basically just killed both of them. The moment where Louise shoots the guy, I’ve often described it as there comes a time in people’s lives where everything you know about yourself to be true, in one instant, can no longer be true. ‘Oh, I would never do this,’ you know? All the things you know about yourself, the right set of circumstances might come together, and you might find that that was nothing more than a fondly held notion about yourself and nothing more.”

One of the many criticisms lobbed against Thelma & Louise was that they were bad role models for women. Columnist Liz Smith wrote at the time, “I wouldn’t send any impressionable young woman I know to see Thelma & Louise.” Yet as we’ve seen in the great movies of the seventies, Thelma & Louise were antiheroes, and there were a lot of shades of gray in the film, which the major studios are terrified of today. (Thelma & Louise also has some of the feel of the great on-the-road movies of the ’70s like Vanishing Point.)

One of the big complaints about Thelma & Louise was that it was labeled anti-men, and Khouri told the Washington Post, “It’s a totally ludicrous assessment when you look at the long history of violence and misogyny on film. There’s a million examples of women being brutalized for no other reason than somebody enjoys seeing it, which makes the male-bashing thing absolutely insane.”

One of the lighter tone shifts in Thelma & Louise, where Louise had a wild night with Brad Pitt after years of unsatisfying sex with her husband, was also criticized because it happened not long after she was attacked. “To me, they were two extremely distinct experiences,” Khouri says. “I didn’t connect them in my mind at all, and when other people did, I was like, ‘I think you need to look at that. You can’t take every bad experience that happens to you and apply it to every good experience that happens to you. Being attacked by a stranger in a parking lot is a different thing than having a wild night in a hotel room with Brad Pitt. I knew the ending of the movie while I was writing it, so the idea that Thelma would get to have one insanely fulfilling sexual experience before the end was really important to me.”

Oh yes, now about that ending. Sarandon saw the ending as the girls going out in a blaze of glory, a la Butch and Sundance, and Khouri says, “It wasn’t meant to be a literal ending. It was them kind of flying off into the mass unconscious. We purposely did not show the smoke coming up from the bottom of the canyon or the car tumbling down the side of the canyon. It was like they were flying away. In so many ways, the movie was a half-full, half-empty glass of water test. There are people who say, ‘How could you have killed them?! I can’t believe it!,’ and there are people that go, ‘They got away! They flew away!’

“What they were trying to get away from, you don’t get away from in this world,” Khouri continues. “Louise still would have been living in her own private nightmare, and it just wouldn’t make any sense. They were never going to be able to push themselves back to what was an acceptable form of life for both of them. Thelma said, ‘Something’s crossed over in me, and I can’t go back.’ She’d become so much herself that there was never going to be another set of circumstances where she was going to be any less than that. Where does a woman like that go?”

Released on May 24, 1991, Thelma & Louise didn’t make Marvel superhero money at the box office, but it was a good-size hit that made $45 million, clearly a great return on its $16 million budget. It was also nominated for six Academy Awards, with Khouri being the sole winner for Best Original Screenplay. As she said during her Oscar speech, “For everybody that wanted to see a happy ending for Thelma and Louise, this is it.”

Many women felt liberated by Thelma & Louise, and it was clearly a very liberating experience for Khouri as well, who went on to direct several movies herself, as well as create the show Nashville. “Thelma & Louise was very much its own creation,” she says. “The thing I’m most proud of with Thelma & Louise is the quality of the filmmaking. Between Ridley and the cast, just the experience of getting to actually shoot the script with all of them, it was really sublime in that way. If I had to say what Ridley’s biggest contribution was, it was being able to take a risk on a movie that might not ever see a dime, if not the light of day. For him to do that at that stage of his career was incredibly brave. For that, I’m eternally grateful, and the fact that he executed it so beautifully, I am forever in his debt.”

Photo by Michael Lenic Photography

A sequel to the 1982 dramatic fantasy film Blade Runner was confirmed back in February of 2015. Since then, announcements detailing writers, release date, and cast members have trickled in — with the latest addition to the cast being Mackenzie Davis.

The Canadian actress has covered grounds in comedy (That Awkward Moment) and taken on a more serious role in The Martian. David will star alongside original cast member Harrison Ford, and new addition Ryan Gosling, who confirmed his role in November. Additionally, Robin Wright of House of Cards fame, has been rumored to appear as one of the remaining two major female roles, though negotiations are still under way.

Blade Runner 2 will follow the initial story, inspired by Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but is set several decades later. The first film was written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, though the sequel will see Fancher working with Michael Green, and Ridley Scott, who directed the original film, will produce the sequel.

The film is scheduled to hit theaters on October 6th, 2017.

“There’s a two-day course called ‘Nicolas Cage: Good or Bad?’ I’m signing up — I’ve always wanted to know.” – Abed Nadir, Community, “Introduction to Teaching”

***

In the fifth season of Dan Harmon’s now-expelled cult series Community, the show’s pop cultural savant, Abed, decides to get some closure on a seemingly simple, but ultimately mind-melting question. Abed subsequently loses all sense of reality, and the question becomes an existential provocation. But then, there is an answer, and we intend to succeed where Abed didn’t necessarily fail, but was certainly thrown by the eccentric essence of Cage.

Nicolas Cage is a raw artist, a thunderball thespian who’s mystified, mortified, and amused audiences for over three decades onscreen. Over the last decade, the memes, personal struggles, and a string of dicey creative decisions have put a sort of washed-out spin on the actor, but that feels wrong. Remember how badass he was as a Bruckheimer star in the ‘90s? Or how charming he could be in the ‘80s? Or how deliciously unhinged he can be, in just about any of his roles? For the 20^th anniversary of Michael Bay’s one truly great film, The Rock, it feels like the right time to consider Cage’s career and put an end to the long-standing question: Nicolas Cage, good or bad?

Today, through simple math and analysis of every last Cage role (from Ridgemont to Rage), we’re putting an end to the Nadir conundrum. (At least, until the next VOD gig.) Sometimes his casting choices will repeat themselves. Other times Cage will be like a trapezoidal peg in a round hole. What we know is that he’s never dull and always at it. Now, to determine Cage’s “goodness.”

Comb your hair, crazy up, and contain your Cage-Rage, because we’re about to scientifically, mathematically, and definitively answer a question that’s besieged mankind for millions upon millions of years.

Blake Goble
Senior Staff Writer

__________________________________________________________

Ridley Scott’s Alien: Covenant is currently shooting all across Sydney, Australia. (If you recall, we shared some terrifying set photos with you last month.) Now, comes an interesting report that original Prometheus heroine Noomi Rapace has signed on to reprise her role as Elizabeth Shaw.

According to Deadline, Rapace, who’s been off and on the project for the last year, will reportedly shoot several weeks worth of scenes for the film. What does that mean? Will they be flashbacks? Will she appear at the end of the film? Is this just a cameo of sorts? It’s unclear at this time.

But, she’s back … and that’s good news. Speaking of which, to add to the positivity, there’s been an assortment of set photos that have popped up over the past few weeks, and we’ve collected ’em all. Below, you can see first looks of Michael Fassbender, Danny McBride, and more.

Alien: Covenant hits theaters August 4th, 2017. Directed by Scott and written by Michael Green, John Logan, and Jack Paglen, the film stars Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston, Demian Bichir, Danny McBride, Jussie Smollett, Amy Seimetz, Carmen Ejogo, Callie Hernandez, and Billy Crudup.

Here’s the synopsis:

Ridley Scott returns to the universe he created in ALIEN with ALIEN: COVENANT, the second chapter in a prequel trilogy that began with PROMETHEUS — and connects directly to Scott’s 1979 seminal work of science fiction. Bound for a remote planet on the far side of the galaxy, the crew of the colony ship Covenant discovers what they think is an uncharted paradise, but is actually a dark, dangerous world — whose sole inhabitant is the “synthetic” David (Michael Fassbender), survivor of the doomed Prometheus expedition.

Denis Villeneuve’s Blade Runner 2 is shaping up nicely.

Between the all-star cast that brings back Harrison Ford as Rick Deckard alongside the likes of Ryan Gosling, Mackenzie Davis, Robin Wright, and Dave Bautista, and the fact that Oscar-nominated cinematographer Roger Deakins is lensing the sequel, we’re feeling pretty confident that we’re in store for something really special.

Now, we have a little sneak peak at what type of world we can expect to see next year. Today, Entertainment Weekly published two pieces of concept art from the film, and the portraits jive with Villenueve’s vision of an even more apocalyptic Los Angeles, one where “the climate has gone berserk — the ocean, the rain, the snow is all toxic.”

What’s more, two more names have signed up for the sci-fi spectacle: David Dastmalchian and Hiam Abbass. Dastmalchian has been making the rounds as of late, having worked on David Lynch’s forthcoming reboot of Twin Peaks, while Abbas previously worked with Ridley Scott on his 2014 biblical epic, Exodus: Gods and Kings.

Now they just need to secure Vangelis.

Blade Runner 2 will follow the initial story, inspired by Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, but is set several decades later. The first film was written by Hampton Fancher and David Peoples, though the sequel will see Fancher working with Michael Green, and Scott, who directed the original, but will now produce the sequel.

The film is scheduled to hit theaters on October 6th, 2017.

With Blade Runner 2 gearing up for an October 6th, 2017 release, casting for the sci-fi sequel continues to come together. Variety reports that the latest addition is none other than the Joker himself, Jared Leto.

Leto rounds out a cast that already includes the original film’s star, Harrison Ford, plus Ryan Gosling, Robin Wright, Mackenzie Davis, and Dave Bautista. Blade Runner 2 will be directed by Denis Villeneuve (Sicario) from a script by the first film’s screenwriter Hampton Fancher and Michae Green. Ridley Scott, the original’s director, will serve as producer.

Though plot and specific character details are still tightly guarded secrets, we do know the film will take place several decades after the original. For a peek at what the world of the movie may look like, check out some previously released storyboards below.