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uziq wrote:

yeah but what sort of person writes movie reviews for the major publications?

Israelis

dilbert reading jacobin? i thought that was exclusively for pink-haired columbia undergrads.

lol well it's one of the most explicitly left-wing publications on the web, in a very 'student activist, fight-the-power' kind of way.

but isn't the alien fictional universe all about grunts and miners being sent to far-off rocks with bugs on them to die for shadowy megacorporations?

i actually dimly remember reading several alien franchise novels when i was in my early teens. sort of thing you pick up at a library and read in an afternoon. i was nothing if not a voracious reader then. so i can dimly remember some of it. very noir'ish and cyberpunk, kind of sub-william gibson, a genre version thereof. probably couldn't abide the hacky prose now but it was immersive at 13.

more to the point: how are you still so keenly knowing this stuff at, what, 55?

was just looking at said franchise novels, to see if it stirred any memories and i could figure out which ones i'd read. genuinely hilarious, almost quaint in a way. the hacky authors who get enlisted to write these things. it's a vanished world even as recently as the late '90s. these anoraks who came up writing short stories and fanfic for pulpy magazines. i bet they made good bank off that career, too. that entire ecosystem is gone.

the equivalent money/activity today is almost entirely in ghost-writing celebrity or political memoirs.

Last edited by uziq (2026-07-16 06:55:13)

dang i remember reading a couple of those aliens novels. avp on a lark. file with star trek, star wars, franchises with some reaaaal stinkers. i think the ecosystem still exists by the way, but they're all writing Very Serious warhammer 40k novels. hopefully nobody's reading this stuff to expand their minds. i think that isn't the point.

no idea in 2026. barnes and noble is dying (a shame, really), and supermarkets only have like four feet of shelf-space for this stuff. there isn't really a store i can go to now and see employee opinions and recommendations scribbled down on the shelves in excited handwriting. commercial wasteland.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2026-07-17 14:22:11)

i imagine they mostly started with a samey, hopeful, self-insert protagonist, a mix of pessimistic and obnoxious space marines, the hot scientist, The Captain, and a nihilistic, pyromaniacal android (whose job it is to ensure evil space company's bug-pregnancy mission goes off with a hitch). then the predator shows up and skins a bunch of dudes and there's some reference to starship troopers and a scene where everyone's all wide-eyed at the interior of the giger-textured ant nest.

mix in some commentary on the catholic church and it's a 40k novel. urgh.

i did appreciate the briefness of what aliens i've read. you could polish one off in an afternoon, guilt-free. i was more into original IP with at least a smidgen of self-awareness.

aliens did it for me more when i watched the first movie. it was probably a rite of passage for a lot of kids. what's even going on with the franchise now? a disfigured goblin of its former self. alien: the search for more money.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2026-07-22 14:12:17)

they made a book of the comic?

Game of Thrones has 1 finished main story. 1 cancelled prequel pilot. 1 planned sequel. And 2 ongoing prequels.

At least that I can remember.

uziq wrote:

i did enjoy the review of the odyssey in the nation. i don’t make a habit of reading film reviews for films i haven’t seen - pace Cats - but this one was written by a hipster literary critic who appears in my much-toted LRB a lot.

https://www.thenation.com/article/cultu … ey-review/

He should hire somebody better at writing them. There are some risible lines, and most of them belong to Matt Damon’s Odysseus. “We’ve been on this beach for 10 fuckin’ years,” he says in a flashback of leaving Troy. “Let’s go home.” Sure, any soldier or sailor will curse, but the line is unpoetic. So too is Damon, when he demands to be tied to the ship’s mast saying, “I wanna hear the sirens’ song,” like a Boston teenager in 1988 cuing up the new Aerosmith album.

i'm just reminded of how little i actually watch movies these days. these are the exact kind of lines that always make me excited not to see a movie when a trailer rolls by. blaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaand.

it feels like writing in hollywood has gone the same way as scoring. the lines themselves are as generic, yawn-inducing background noise as the music. is anyone buying sheets for anything made past 2010? not me.

i've talked about this. avatar, for all its space pocahontas energy, had some pretty good visuals for the time! what i don't remember are the lines and music. it's still depressing how the original conceptualized score apparently full of uncommon and unique sound was replaced with generic western orchestral noise that would 'resonate with our wider target audience' or whatever. bleeaagh. maybe that's the reason for all the genericness infesting moviemaking is to sand everything down to the point where anyone can comfortably shove it up their ass. buttplug man is set to be the summer blockbuster of 2027!

edit:
in related news, imagine if the right gave as much of a shit about modern greeks as they apparently do about ancient greeks. musk wants to make his own 'historically accurate' version with grok (oh joy) and wants mel gibson's involvement or something! LMAO! yes, mel gibson, famous for historically accurate braveheart. all very youtuber with roman soldier's helmet in the avatar coded.

people are actually giving him props for this. i don't know if it's worse being that easy to impress, or being a part of the for-the-lulz internet troll culture that sold out under maga.

Last edited by unnamednewbie13 (2026-07-25 09:04:29)

uziq wrote:

wasn't it a game of thrones fanfic?

It was obviously a Spiderman crossover, it had Peter Parker, Mjay and Batman in it.

If I'd waited until the post-credits denouement I'm sure Peter Parker would have woken up in his bed 'it was all a a dream"

He should hire somebody better at writing them. There are some risible lines, and most of them belong to Matt Damon’s Odysseus. “We’ve been on this beach for 10 fuckin’ years,” he says in a flashback of leaving Troy. “Let’s go home.” Sure, any soldier or sailor will curse, but the line is unpoetic. So too is Damon, when he demands to be tied to the ship’s mast saying, “I wanna hear the sirens’ song,” like a Boston teenager in 1988 cuing up the new Aerosmith album.

Its funny how its obligatory for historical dramas to be in oxferd english no matter where or when they are set.
But yeah it does grate when Telemachus calls his parents 'Mom' and 'Dad'

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2026-07-27 03:03:25)

he didn't really criticise the acting without qualification? seems he mostly criticised the writing.

i can see why a bland and traumatised matt damon would be considered a bad interpretation of that character. odysseus is one of the most legendary characters in the western canon because he is wily, cunning, and generally all-round unafflicted by ultra-modern PTSD.

and there seems to be a consensus emerging that tom holland was a terrible telemachus. i can't watch him in any movie as he seems to have the vocal delivery of a permanently pubescent teen, it's genuinely one of the most irritating voices i've heard in any actor.

Last edited by uziq (2026-07-27 07:39:53)

haven't seen any of the recent nolan movies and no real inclination to. there are already a dozen amazing odyssey adaptations.