Dave Dorman – Aliens Tribes (1992) cover
Tag: aliens
2018 best of the rest
My favorite book about things clipped from newspapers
As a kid I used to clip ads for movies out of the newspaper — Sundays were the best since the ads that day were in color. While I gave up after a while, Michael Gingold didn’t and spent much of the 1980s snipping ads for horror movies from papers in New York and New England, of which became basis of his brilliant book Ad Nauseam: Newsprint Nightmares from the 1980s that collects more than 450 of these ads in one place. One thing I found fascinating about the ads were that the film promoters had to create different ads for different papers. What might fly in the New York Post wouldn’t be acceptable in something more conservative like the New York Times where artwork would have to be toned back, altered and sometimes completely changed to fit their standards.
My favorite fictional occult investigative reporter
I’ve been obsessed with the character of Carl Kolchak (Darren McGavin) for many a year now, but had to settle with DVD versions of the two brilliant 1970s made-for-TV movies until now. Last fall Kino Lorber released both Kolchak’s first appearance fighting a vampire in The Night Stalker (1972) and the next a ghoul The Night Strangler (1973) in glorious HD. If you’ve never seen these movies that went onto inspire things like The X-Files before, here’s your chance since made-for-TV movie or not, these two films are superb.
My favorite shows that woke me at 3AM in a cold sweat
Over the last few years there’s been a spate of really good horror series on TV, be it Hannibal from a few years ago or more recently things like Stranger Things, Black Mirror and The Haunting of Hill House on Netflix. And while there’s been horror on TV for years now, I can’t think of another time when there’s been so much horror on TV that’s all been so good, or scary. Yes, I really did wake up at 3AM last October after watching the first episode of The Haunting of Hill House that gave me a serious case of the heebie-jeebies.
My favorite comic book about one of the greatest unmade movies ever
Last fall Dark Horse Comics began releasing a comic book adaptation of the unmade movie Alien 3. “What,” you say, “Alien 3 was made, David Fincher directed it and it was released in 1992 you imbecile!” And you’d be right, except before the Fincher version saw the light of day there were quite a few different scripts for the movie that were developed and then abandoned before producers settled on the version that finally made it to theaters.
This unmade Alien 3 was written by cyberpunk pioneer William Gibson and would’ve been a more direct continuation of Aliens with Ripley, Hicks and Newt being the stars of the movie rather than just Ripley in the theatrical Alien 3. The script has been floating around online for years now has been called one of the greatest unmade movies ever. “Greatest” or not this Alien 3 never went into production because it was so big it would’ve been too expensive to produce back in the early 1990s. But because there’s no budget for special effects in a comic book we’re finally seeing this version of the Aliens story come to life.
My favorite show about superheroes punching people really hard
There aren’t too many superhero TV shows that I’m into, one of the exceptions is Daredevil on Netflix. I think where Daredevil is so good while other superhero shows are so bland, is that the characters of Daredevil feel like real, breathing people. Whereas the characters of most other superhero shows, I’m looking in your general direction The CW, don’t feel real but instead feel like artificial characters constructed to be a part of a superhero show. And I think that makes all the difference for Daredevil. Unfortunately, because of a contract dispute with Disney, Netflix cancelled much of their Marvel superhero TV series, Daredevil included meaning the third season of this show was also its final, which was a bummer of a way to end 2018.
Killian Eng Mondo Alien poster
Bernie Wrightson Dark Horse Presents #101 Aliens cover
Direct Beam Comms #151
TV
Daredevil ⭐⭐
It’s been almost exactly 19 months since the last season of Daredevil dropped on Netflix. In that time four separate superhero series have premiered there; Luke Cage, Iron Fist, The Punisher and The Defenders. And while Daredevil/Matt Murdock (Charlie Cox) was a large part of The Defenders, I have to say that I’ve missed seeing the man without fear in his own series all those months.
Luckily, the devil of hell’s kitchen has returned for a third season after having spent the first battling Wilson Fisk (Vincent D’Onofrio) and the ninja clan the Hand in the second.
After the events of The Defenders, Murdock has been left a broken man having a building literally fall on him. His senses dulled and his hearing nearly ruined, Murdock spends most of the first episode of the third season recovering in a church run by a sympathetic priest and nun. He’s not quite sure where his future lies. On the one hand his friends Karen Page (Deborah Ann Woll) and Foggy Nelson (Elden Henson) think he’s dead after that building came down on him so he could easily walk away from his life and start something new. On the other hand giving up helping the innocent and punching the bad guys in the face is a really hard life to leave.
The one weak point here is that while Murdock spends most of the episode not quite sure if he still wants to be Daredevil or not, the series is called Daredevil and not Matt Murdock so we as the audience knows he’s going to be the Daredevil again, even if he does not. So in a lot of ways this episode feels a little bit superfluous in that regard.
Also returned in this season of the show is Fisk aka Kingpin. He’s gone from the criminal ruler of much of New York to a man behind bars since the close of the first season. And, in a hilarious moment in a loud and raucous jail, screams for everyone else to “shut up” and they obey.
I’m sure the third season of Daredevil will turn out pretty interesting even if the first episode wasn’t much so, and I’m a fan of the show/character so I’m into this one until the end. I just wish that a little more had happened in the first one than it did. Let me put it this way, I think that by the end of the season I’ll look back on this first episode as one the could’ve easily been skipped with nothing lost to the story.
The Conners ⭐⭐
Perhaps the most controversial series of the 2017–2018 season was, surprisingly enough, the revival of Roseanne. Even before an episode aired there was controversy over subject matter and during the run of the show and there was more controversy as well because of some lines in a particular episode about other sitcoms.
But because Roseanne got such strong ratings, more than 25 million viewers tuned into the first episode the week it aired, the series was quickly ordered to a second season by ABC. However, during the hiatus between seasons Roseanne Barr made comments on Twitter that were considered racist, which she famously blamed on the drug Ambien, and just like that Roseanne was cancelled. But because all good stories need a twist along the way, after Barr agreed to leave the show and have nothing further to do with it, Roseanne was un-cancelled, retitled and debuted last week as the Roseanne-less The Conners.
The first episode opens with Roseanne having died off-screen from a drug overdose, some of the first season dealt with her being addicted to opioids and hiding this from the family, and the Conners coming to terms with the loss. I can’t think of any other sitcoms today that portray the working class like Roseanne did and now The Conners do. The series can go from funny to uncomfortable in a single scene and is a better show than most sitcoms because of it.
I genuinely dug the first season of Roseanne and was glad to see it return, and The Conners didn’t disappoint in a strangely moving first episode. It’s pretty much Roseanne minus Roseanne, and because the main character’s gone it means there’s more room for everybody else to have more story time than before.
I don’t think Roseanne’s going to be missed.
Camping ⭐
I don’t quite get the new HBO series Camping that debuted last Sunday. In it, a tightly wound woman Kathryn (Jennifer Garner) goes on a family camping trip to celebrate her husband’s (David Tennant) birthday. She’s got everything scheduled out to the minute and can’t deal when things don’t go exactly as planned. Honesty, Camping is more like a bad episode of Modern Family but with swearing and nudity rather than something I would’ve expected to see on HBO.
Comics
Aliens: The Essential Comics Volume 1
Although these have been collected many, many times before, Dark Horse is set to release a new version of the original three Aliens stories published together in a new volume this week in a volume that retails for $25.
Complete in this first volume is the initial Aliens trilogy–Outbreak, Nightmare Asylum, and Earth War, in which Hicks and Newt–and eventually Ripley–join forces to battle an infestation of Aliens both on Earth and in the wider galaxy.
What To Watch This Week
Sunday
TCM will be airing a load of movie featuring mummies this Sunday including The Mummy, The Curse of the Mummy’s Tomb and Pharaoh’s Curse.
Monday
After “Mummy Sunday” TCM will have “Frankenstein Monday” which will include an airing of their new documentary The Strange Life of Dr. Frankenstein and classic films like Son of Frankenstein, The Curse of Frankenstein, Frankenstein Created Woman and Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed!
The fourth season of the series Legends of Tomorrow begins tonight on The CW.
Tuesday
One of the big hits of the summer Incredibles 2 is available on digital download today.
Thursday
Insomniac Theater: At midnight tonight (Eastern) the sequel spy series to Deutschland 83, Deutschland 86 debuts on Sundance.
What was originally set to be the backbone of the Paramount Network back in March, Heathers is now being burned off in a five night “binge” after controversy overtook the series before a single episode aired.
Friday
The second season of the animated series based on the hit video game Castlevania is available today on Netflix.
Books
Dungeons and Dragons Art and Arcana
Looking to collect much of the wonderful art that’s gone into the Dungeons and Dragons game over the decades, and maybe cash in on a little of the nostalgia DND has been getting ever since it was a feature of the Stranger Things TV show, comes the book Dungeons and Dragons Art and Arcana.
From one of the most iconic game brands in the world, this official DUNGEONS & DRAGONS illustrated history provides an unprecedented look at the visual evolution of the brand, showing its continued influence on the worlds of pop culture and fantasy. Inside the book, you’ll find more than seven hundred pieces of artwork—from each edition of the core role-playing books, supplements, and adventures; as well as Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance novels; decades of Dragon and Dungeon magazines; and classic advertisements and merchandise; plus never-before-seen sketches, large-format canvases, rare photographs, one-of-a-kind drafts, and more from the now-famous designers and artists associated with DUNGEONS & DRAGONS.
The Reading & Watch List
- ‘Piano and a Microphone’: The Inside Story of the Long-Lost Prince Recording From 1983
- Get Lost in Mega-Tunnels Dug by South American Megafauna
- Our Solar System Is Even Stranger Than We Thought
- The Future of the Cloud Depends on Magnetic Tape
- What it’s like to fall 31 miles to Earth after your rocket fails
Cool Movie & TV Posters of the Week
Daredevil 
Arrow