2.21 - ALIEN: RESURRECTION (1997) and Captivity

The Prestige

This week sees the conclusion of the ALIEN franchise. We discuss its shortcomings — clunky storyline, overzealous editing, Sigourney Weaver as an actor/producer — but then we get stuck into what makes this film really interesting: from French philosophy to cinematographic trickery.

This Week’s Watching
THE KING’S SPEECH (2010): Tom Hooper, Colin Firth, Geoffrey Rush
SUICIDE SQUAD (2016): David Ayer, Will Smith, Jared Leto

Recommendations
DRIVE (2011): Nicolas Winding Refn, Ryan Gosling, Carey Mulligan
THE USUAL SUSPECTS (1995): Brian Singer, Stephen Baldwin, Gabriel Byrne
LUKE CAGE (2016): Cheo Hodari Coker, Mike Colton, Mahershala Ali
HELLBOY (2004): Guillermo del Toro, Ron Perlman, Selma Blair
SERENITY (2005): Joss Whedon, Nathan Fillion, Alan Tudyk

Footnotes
An explanation of Foucault’s ‘panopticon’ principle can be found here (the ‘panopticon’ article takes you to the philosophical origins of Foucault’s ideas, so you might prefer to start here). There’s more on the ‘bleach bypass’ cinematographic technique used by Darius Khondji, and an interesting article — one of a series — that features the work of a variety of cinematographers, Khondji included. We didn’t have time to go into the idea of cyclical narratives, but this is good. Finally, proof that Sam’s Simone Missick story isn’t just the ravings of someone who’s watched (and written about) faaar too much LUKE CAGE.