Showing posts with label Alien: Romulus. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Alien: Romulus. Show all posts

Friday, August 16, 2024

Simon Waskow - Soft Array


From Simon Waskow's incredible score for Tilman Singer's Luz. I love this film, and a lot of that love comes from the score (not to diminish the film in any way; I feel about this the way I do M83's score for Knife + Heart - they are intertwined perfectly).  



Watch:

K and I hit the local theatre's 7:20 PM screening of Fede Alvarez's Alien: Romulus last night.


This is everything you want from an Alien film. There's just the right amount of fan service, I think, and that's refreshing after Deadpool Loves Wolverine,  which I enjoyed, but which was 90% fan service. But of course, Fede Alvarez was going to know how to make an incredible Alien film - he already proved his ability to pick up an iconic franchise with 2013's Evil Dead.

I don't want to say too much, but I will say the trailers gave nothing away on this one, and that makes me super happy. That said, I'm still only posting that first teaser. The less you see, the better. The tone and story of Romulus advance the world of "The Company" in a way that I very much appreciated, and a lot of the opening chapter's set designs remind me of that wonderful Metal Hulant Sci-Fi from the 70s/80s.




Read:

Having finished Alan Moore's Swamp Thing last weekend, I began Neil Gaiman's Sandman. Nearing the end of the first collected volume, Preludes and Nocturnes, I'm reminded how much I absolutely love this book. The John Dee chapters are my favorites, and "24 Hours" stands as a watershed moment in my comic book reading life. 


I can still vividly remember the way this book made me feel the first time I read it, and that's rare (although not rare for 80s/90s Vertigo comics). Storywise, Dream doesn't even enter the picture until the last page or so, and that time spent away, watching a demented man amuse himself with the lives of others, as careless as if he were throwing dice, it just sunk in and took root. There is real Horror here, and it's steeped in a glorious 80s Post Punk flavor that just kicked open all kinds of new doors for me at the time I read it in High School, circa... 92 or 93, I think.

Onward to my favorite collected edition - The Doll's House, which will be the first volume that draws from Moore's Swamp Thing by incorporating a transmogrified Matthew Cable as Matthew the Raven and the references to Moore's The Boogeyman Killer. I'm hoping as I read these I might find some other references I'm not familiar with. 




Playlist:

Primus - Antipop
QOTSA - Era Vulgaris B-Sides/Lullabies to Paralyze Vinyl Exclusives
Japandroids - Celebration Rock
Jon Cleary - Jon Cleary and the Absolute Monster Gentlemen
Danzig - Danzig 4
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II
Matt Cameron - Gory Scorch Cretins
Melvins - (A) Senile Animal
Primus - Green Gnaugahyde




Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm's Kickstarter for the Hand of Doom Tarot Art Book is up for four more days. Check it out HERE.


• Ace of Swords
• Two of Pentacles
• Queen of Pentacles

A breakthrough of intellect leads to collaboration and a nurturing future endeavor. Interesting... at least with Vol. 4 published, I can stop reading all of these are pertaining to finishing that book.

Wednesday, June 5, 2024

David Lynch and Chrsta Bell

 

We're getting a new album from David Lynch and Chrysta Bell! They dropped the first song yesterday, as Lynch cryptically promised on his social media last week. You can pre-order Cellophane Memories from the always wonderful Sacred Bones if you go to their site HERE or David Lynch's Bandcamp HERE.




Watch:

Here's one I'm dying to watch but have thus far successfully fought the urge to do so, simply because I'm certain I'll see it play ahead of movies in the theatre.


I can't wait to see this movie, and I have nothing but the utmost faith in Fede Alvarez. I'm just more than a little concerned that what happened to Evil Dead Rise after seeing the trailer so many times could happen to this. Chances are, that's not going to happen, because this will be a better movie, and I've already been told by several people that this trailer doesn't actually give away much. But I think of that "Mommy's with the maggots now" scene and wonder if it just might have been a truly terrifying scene if I hadn't already been inoculated of it through repetition. I consider it a fucking miracle that we have Alvarez on a franchise I love and want the best for - one that needs more than a little help, let's face it. So... I'll continue to wait. But it's here now, just in case I change my mind (like I eventually will).




Playlist:

David Lynch and Chrystabell - Sublime Eternal Love (pre-release single)
The Jesus Lizard - Hide & Seek (pre-release single)
The Jesus Lizard - Show
Anthrax - Persistence of Time
Anthrax - Among the Living
The Jesus Lizard - Shot
Phil Collins - Face Value




Wednesday, March 20, 2024

Moon Wizard - Luminare


I'm not even certain how I stumbled across Moon Wizard, but hot damn am I glad I did. I LOVE this band! New album Sirens came out a few weeks ago and you can click on that Bandcamp Widget above or this link HERE and support these guys!




NCBD:

Pretty big haul today. Let's get into it:


Two issues of Army of Darkness Forever remain after this one, and I'm looking forward to seeing how the three disparate timelines - Ash in the future, Evil Ash in the 90s, and Sheila in the Medieval Army of Darkness timeline - all coalesce. 


This Cobra Commander series is the best damn thing since sliced bread. My Drinking with Comics cohost Mike Shin stole a peak at this one while putting it on the shelves at his shop, and without revealing anything, his "Damn," pronouncement has me giddy A.F. for tomorrow.


Love the cover. I was happy to learn that Larry Hama's seminal G.I.JOE: ARAH is making such a triumphant resurgence, and I'm happy to do my part. Even with an almost 200 issue gap in my reading, I'm digging returning to the book that turned me into a hardcore comic fan. 


Johnny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling. With old buds John Constantine and Alec Holland's Swamp Thing back together again, what madness awaits? We shall see...


I feel like the second issue of this just came out. The other side of the Fall of X coin, I'm digging Al Ewing's approach to this a lot. As I mentioned in a recent episode of Drinking with Comics, this shares some DNA with his 2021 Defenders series, of which I was a pretty big fan. 


Hate to see this chapter in Jeff Lemire and Andrea Sorrentino's Bone Orchard Mythos go, but with the world-building going on in the previous two issues, I'm psyched that however Tenement ends, it will pave the way for future great things.


Not gonna lie, I'm pretty skeptical about this one. That said, I've come this far not to finish this whole Fall of X thing out, and the four-issue X-Men: Forever appears to be the caboose on Kieron Gillen's train, so let's do this, for better or worse.




Watch:

Fede Alvarez, I'd follow you into hell, because tomorrow...


Is today...


Can't F**kin' wait! 




Playlist:

Metallica - Master of Puppets
Mr. Bungle - The Raging Wrath of the Easter Bunny
Chelsea Wolfe - She Reaches Out to She Reaches Out to She
Moon Wizard - Sirens
The Obsessed - Gilded Sorrow
Goat Snake - Black Age Blues
Yawning Balch - Volume One
Fvnerals - Let the Earth be Silent




Card:

From Jonathan Grimm's Hand of Doom Tarot, which you can buy HERE. Also, Grimm recently launched a Kickstarter for his new deck, The FaeBound Tarot, which you can marvel at and acquire HERE.


• IX: The Hermit
• Queen of Pentacles
• Five of Cups

There's the Hermit in first position again. That's two days in a row, so let's look a little deeper into it. From the grimoire: "Dark & lonely period of gestation. Fetal; a re-grouping. This is EXACTLY where I'm at after two days of working on the last act of the novel. It's uncanny. The Queen of Pentacles - or the Emotional aspect of Earthly concerns is my protagonist Lisa exactly. The Five of Cups is the Emotional Conflict she is soon to be crushed under in determining how best to survive the events of the novel's final conflict. I don't necessarily see guidance for my way forward in these cards, but they definitely feel like a nod to the fact that I'm on the right path. To quote Deputy Hawk: 

"You're on the path. You don't need to know where it leads. Just follow."