ACAB: Álvarez Coincidences; Apple's "Box"
Better Endings investigates...
For some reason, Dark Matter is getting a second season on Apple TV+. The book’s author/adapter, Blake Crouch, says “In the process of writing and filming season one, we discovered that there’s so much more story to tell... See you in the Box!”
There isn’t and you won’t.
Alien: Romulus (2024) opens this weekend and I’d very much like to see it, but I’m afraid this desire will not be satiated until sometime next week. Regardless, here are a few things I find interesting about director Fede Álvarez’s existing oeuvre of films:
Evil Dead (2013), his feature film directorial debut, is a re-imagining of the (cult?) (classic?) 80’s horror film, The Evil Dead (1981), a movie about a group of friends from Michigan that go on vacation to a cabin in the woods. In both movies, everyone has a lovely time.
His second feature, Don’t Breathe (2016), is about a group of punk (pejorative) kids that break into a blind guy’s house to steal his money. It takes place in Detroit, Michigan; the break-in does not go well for them.
His latest film is Alien: Romulus. Romulus is a city in Michigan just west of Detroit and is home to the Detroit Metropolitan Wayne County Airport (DTW).
This 2016 Vulture article is the best I could find that lightly caresses upon the Uruguayan director’s connection to Detroit/Michigan (minimal, barely worth the click), but I’m tickled by this nothing-coincidence nonetheless.
While I’m typing about Alien…
…have you ever read a headline and went from “Ugh!” when you started reading it to “All right!” by the time you finished? Like a lifetime of thoughts, feelings, and emotions were lived in the span of what’s not even really a full sentence? This happened to me a month ago and I just never had a chance to bring it up here, but here it is:
FX’s ‘Alien’ Series Wraps Filming, Showrunner Noah Hawley Promises “Something Special”
The “Ugh!” for me being the “FX’s ‘Alien’ Series Wraps Filming“ part. Not everything needs to be a show. Not every nook-and-cranny needs to be explored ad nauseam within a “universe” (*cough* Dark Matter *cough*).
The “All right!” for me was that it’s from Noah Hawley, a guy who, against all odds, expanded the life and times of the singular Fargo (1993) universe into a consistently good-to-great TV series that I enjoyed most of.
Do I believe Noah’s promise of “something special”? Not until I give Alien: Earth (dumb name) a watch, but he hasn’t done me wrong yet.
Now that’s a Box in which you will see me.
...
Bookends, baby!
Current Mood: Very hungry
Listening to: The spin-cycle of my washing machine