Fire and Stone and Piss

Or a Legacy of Acid Blood:

A review of Aliens Versus Predator: Fire and Stone #1.

By James Kislingbury

Exhibit 1: Pay attention. This will
 come up later.

Alien Versus Predator wasn't ever good, was it?

If making me ask the tough questions indicates sharp writing and fine storytelling, then Alien Versus Predator: Fire and Stone #1 is an excellent standard. If you judge it by any sort of actual standard, you will discover that this is one of the crappiest things you could throw $3.50 at. I suppose you could just flush it down the toilet, but that doesn't seem very environmentally sound.

If anything AvP #1 should be applauded for its consistency. The comic begins as it ends: An incoherent jumble of characters, plot points, and unknown motives, then filled in with lazy art and a dumb concept. 

From the very first pages, you know that you're in trouble, because it begins less en media res than it does directly after another comic book, one that, notably has not been released yet (The editorial staff at Dark Horse are happy to point out in synopsis that this takes place between the Prometheus story and the Predator story, which, again, if Predator is going to be in the future then why even. . . Ah, never mind).

The story Christopher Sebela has scrawled into the dirt with his numb hands, rendered as dactyl as flippers from years of neuro-syphillis (or so I imagine) is shockingly incoherent, even for a book that contains the word “Versus.”

I could go on and on about the problems this issue has, from minor to major, but to burn any more calories on this than I need to would make me look like an even bigger asshole than I already am. The problematic crux of this book is the villain. . . Or rather, who I understand the villain to be. And he must be the villain, he doesn't have any skin. Or, well, a little bit of skin, which is arguably worse than no skin at all.

Hey! Look! Stuff!

I don't know who this bad guy is. Not in the sense of “Who is good? Who is bad? In this crazy, mixed up world of ours, is there any other shade than grey?” No. I mean it in the sense of “I do not know who this is supposed to be.” I know now that he is from the Prometheus comic book, but really, how is anybody supposed to piece that together? Or much less care? I'm reading these books and I have no idea what this is supposed to be.

The villain looks like he's dressed up as an edgy re-imagining of Skeletor that you found on Deviant Art and. . . Poison Ivy? And he can control aliens? For some reason? As best as I can tell, the bad guy, whoever the fuck he is, is some kind of a GWAR. I mean, I like GWAR and it's good to see them get work, but I don't know if this is the right project for them. Also, I wish for death.

As far as the art goes, I was actually looking forward to Ariel Olivetti's return to this weird sub-series. In 2007 he worked on the book Superman and Batman Versus Alien Versus Predator which, even as a devout nerd is a bridge too far. That said, I like him as an artist. He's done fine work in the past and it's always good to see a book like this, which can sell on its name alone, featuring a skilled, respectable artist.

I can see now this thinking was delusional.

As fine as Olivetti might have been in the past, this comic book (on all levels, to be fair), on every level, is a lazy, misguided book. So, again, at least the art matches the script.

His panels, in many cases look unfinished. And, fair enough, maybe that's his style. Cary Nord's art never looks finished and he's great. As you read on, though, a pattern begins to emerge. You being to see an unfortunate amount of recycled backgrounds in the book, as well as one of the silliest, most obvious cut and paste jobs that I've ever seen. If he doesn't particularly care about the book and its art, why should I?

So, there is a laser gun in this book. And it is a plot point. Because, of course, in all the universe, in all of the things and ideas you could stumble upon, from the dawn of the species to its near extinction, the only thing you can come up with to intrigue the audience is a gun that shoots slightly better than the other guns we've already seen. What wonders await us in issue #2? Maybe a car that goes slightly faster than other cars! Maybe it uses five wheels!

But you will see this gun over and over again. I do mean the same gun. Olivetti only seemed to have drawn it two or three times, the other times, it is poorly photoshopped into a character's hand. Oh wait, sometimes it's mirrored. And sometimes it's tilted slightly.

Also, the space ship from the Prometheus comic book still looks dumb as hell. It looks like a dumpster with a cyst problem.

Admittedly, the color palette in this
version is better than the print version.

AvP also carries on Prometheus' tradition of featuring a great artist kind of phoning in a cover. The cover features another AvP legacy artist: Mike Mignola. Who originally worked on AvP #0 way back in the late 80's, the inaugural issue of this entire debacle. In a way he's to blame for all of this. Anyways, it's not a god cover. It's not good A, v, or P art and it certainly doesn't belong alongside other Mignola art. Oh well. At least he didn't lose too much time making this one and he could probably buy a high end juicer with this pay check. And everybody deserves a good juice.

I don't hate this comic. I hate that I have to read three more issues of it. None of that feels good to say. I like this universe on the whole and, as I get older, I don't like to trash things simply because they're bad. Now I try to only trash things because they are morally objectionable or because of some terrible political point they're trying to push. But this? It's just lazy. And that's not enough of a character flaw to justify my anger.

This poor excuse for kindling gets one chestburster out of five. I pray for the silly chestburster from Space Balls. Give me anything else but what this is. It is only spared a zero for Olivetti's competent, if fairly unenthusiastic art. Even when he doesn't care, he can still pump out something worth looking at. Almost.

See you next month, you blight, I hope you. . . Oh. Oh, we're going to get a fucking pred-alien, aren't we? Goddamnit what am I even doing here?

SIDE NOTE:

Speaking of logos, the AVP logo puts a sour taste in your mouth, doesn't it? I prefer the original logo, if only because it isn't tainted by those terrible, terrible movies. Goddamn Requiem is a piece of garbage.

You can read part one of Me versus Aliens Versus Predator here.

James Kislingbury writes, podcasts, and needs you and is sick and tired of your bullshit.

"In Space Life is Impossible"

"In Space Life is Impossible:" 

A review of Gravity.

From the first moments to the very last shot, Gravity doesn't let up for a single second.As I write this, my stomach is in knots, my heart rate has only gone down just now, and I think I almost tore my handkerchief in half. If my sweaty palms are any indication, Gravity is a very accomplished film. If you want a movie that feels like a 90 minute panic attack while hand-cuffed to a rollercoaster, this is the movie to see.

It's kind of hard to believe that Gravity is the only film Alfonso Cuaron has made since Children of Men. Considering how Children of Men combined a pulp adventure story with a Biblical allegory, while at the same time quietly redefining cinema, a gap of seven years isn't just conspicuous, it's depressing.We have an answer in Gravity. Apparently this is what he was saving it up for.

The anxiousness and thrills that Gravity delivers are entirely down to how impeccably well constructed it is. We saw how well he could wield a camera and construct a scene in Children of Men and with Gravity we see that same talent turned towards a film that is much more sparse, yet somehow bigger. Children of Men is a film about a particular kind of world, while Gravity is a film about the vastness of the universe and just how large a human being can feel.

It's a film that is so consummately constructed that not only does the 3D work, it actually adds to the tone of the film. The use of 3D gives the film a sense of dimension and space that a 2D film doesn't have, while at the same time only calling attention to the 3D for a greater effect. Maybe I'm saying this because I was so impressed with the movie that I didn't let the 3D get in the way, but I'll be damned if I didn't feel that it made the movie somehow bigger. If stereoscopy is a gimmick, then I can live with that gimmick if it means we get more movies like Gravity.

The 3D seems as cinematically important as Cinerama is to 2001: A Space Odyssey.* The Cinerama simply makes 2001 bigger. It doesn't change the film, yet it transforms it into a greater film. The same is true in Gravity's case. The sense of scale and space that this movie uses to tell a story isn't possible 2D. The greater triumph, though is, even if that isn't true, it feels like it's true.

I mentioned 2001: A Space Odyssey, not because they're both movies about space (though, that helps), but because Alfonso Cuaron's cinematic eye is no less dynamic or exacting than Stanley Kubrick's was in his own epic. These are men who understand how to use the movie in its most basic, primitive sense. That is why both of these stories exist primarily without words. They can hold our attention without having to talk to us or tell us what is happening. While they each include simple, yet important character interactions, their triumph is the use of film's most primitive tools-- sound, colors, motion-- to tell us things that, in many cases, simple words cannot. This strong, directorial hand is why 2001 is still studied and debated today. This is why Gravity carries so much weight with so few words**.

Cuaron gives you an ending and a sense of awe that you can only earn after ninety minutes of fear and trembling. He doesn't ever need to tell you what you're supposed to feel. You simply know. You know, because that is what movies are supposed to do. As much fun as Gravity is, it also feels like arriving at some sort of fundamental truth. In that sense, it is the complete opposite of 2001: A Space Odyssey.

It is in these grand strokes that the movie shows its brilliance. There is nothing complicated or difficult to understand, yet this is deceptive in a way that makes movies so great. For all of the craftsmanship that went into this movie, it all disguises itself in service of this story. It's a magic trick. You don't see the years of work that went into it, the failures leading up to it, or the simple slight of hand that makes it all possible.All you see is the trick and all you feel is a sense of wonder, the knowledge that you just saw something that is impossible.

All of this is in service of telling a story, one about a person's desire to live. It isn't about the physical facts of the matter, it is about emotional reality of these characters. What they feel is no less real than the laws of physics that this movie is so (seemingly) concerned about. It is as simple and as profound as all of that. In that sense, it is like 2001: A Space Odyssey, because they're both about the wordless wonder that a great movie provides. There is a symphonic, wordless well beneath all of this that I cannot quite put into words, nor would I want to if I could. But I think I love this movie.

I'm still shaking and maybe that isn't the most objective way to review a film. I don't really care, because this is how I feel about Gravity. For as much fun as I had watching the movie, what I know is true about this movie is what I felt walking home from the theater, wide eyed and rubbing my head with both hands amazed at what I just saw. That experience is something that I cannot write here. What I can write, in whatever meager way, is that this movie has made me feel in a way and with a strength that I have not felt in a long, long time. Movies are great. Being alive is great and all I want to do write now is to sit here a while. I want to sit here and take deep breaths and try to take in what I just saw.

I am going to sit here a long while.



HERE COMES THE AD ZONE:

My friends and I are working on a follow-up to our first comic book anthology. Naturally, that means we have a  Kickstarter going. Any little bit helps and, hey, if you're actually interested in the project, that's even better. I'm really looking forward to getting this thing out in the world, but, yes, we do need your help. 

FOOTNOTES:

 *Which is to say that you have not actually seen 2001: A Space Odyssey until you've seen it in Cinerama. It's like when you take off your sunglasses after wearing them for a long time and wondering if colors were always this bright).

**There, I fixed the worst sentence I've ever written! Happy now!?

NOW NOW I WANT THIS NOW

MAKE IT HAPPEN LET'S DO IT COME ON ALREADY

Too Many Words About Prometheus

I'll try my best to avoid spoilers (those are mostly at the back-end of this article, past the obligatory Mark Kermode video), though I feel that's kind of silly. By now I figure you've already seen it or decided not to see it, though, so, I don't know: Here we are.



I'll get the big spoiler out of the way: I liked this movie quite a bit. Once you get past the hype what you have is a film experience that's worth having and it's worth having with as little input from other people-- the media, your friends, those dicks on the internet, or even me-- as possible. It benefits from the mystery, which, is also something of a strike against it. Without the shock and the glamor Prometheus isn't a brilliant movie, but it is a pretty good one.

There's a lot of talk about this movie being stacked up alongside The Phantom Menace, which is neither fair to Sir Ridley Scott nor Mr. Plinkett's apt review. What you have in the form of Prometheus is a big, bold piece of populist science fiction that wants to be both entertaining and intruding, but doesn't quite succeed on either count.

If you want to talk about disappointment we could always talk about Alien Versus Predator. Or Alien Versus Predator: Requiem for that matter and Prometheus is, thankfully, a far better movie than most of the Alien sequels and more than a few other high-budget science fiction movies.

Alright, folks, this is a long and rambling one. . . 



 Instead of going on and on about how this is Fassbender's show (which everyone else on Earth seems to think, so I'll not waste my breath), I want to talk about Charlize Theron, because she is my favorite character in the film (I mean, besides Fassbender).

She's the kind of cold, heartless bitch you would expect "the Company" would send, though instead of just being this1980's-style go-getter (like Burke or maybe Ellis from Die Hard) what you have is an ambitious woman that somehow ends up being more cold than the android David and seemingly more vulnerable than Dr. Shaw. She's a scared little girl that can't show her fear and who thinks that being human is some sort of weakness. That's kind of amazing to see in a six-something Academy Award winning Amazon. It's a shame she is so good and her character has so much going on behind the curtains because in the end, she's wasted like so many of the other characters.

I also think the reveal with her character could have been more intelligently executed than it was. The second that scene began I know what it was about and didn't need the kind of awkward telegraphing that we got. That's more or less the entire problem of the film. Instead of subtext we get statements and instead of characters we get set pieces quite literally coming down on them. It's like watching a great gymnastic set where somebody flubs the landing.

Noomi Rapace also deserves a commendation for the energy she put into the role, even if her character wasn't particularly interesting. Then again, we all knew she could pull off "intensity," right?



A problem in the movie-- and it is a fundamental problem-- is that Prometheus doesn't really present a coherent theme like Alien or a coherent narrative like Alien, but to be fair Alien is just a haunted house movie in space. It doesn't hold together as a uniform piece of work neither in theme nor in the characters or in anything else that would have turned this into a great film.

It's unfair for me to raise this comparison having seen Alien twenty or so times and studied it and written about it and having only seen Prometheus the once. This fact remains that Alien was about subtext and small things adding up to something much bigger and much more clever than space truckers fighting the It Came From Outer Space. Prometheus wears its themes on its sleeves and it doesn't benefit from this. It doesn't come off as bold, it comes off as clunky (that is if it wasn't so confused about what it was).

This movie satisfies in all of the ways that a movie like this should, though. It's chock full of gore and Gigerian-style horrors, yet it doesn't feel as raw as Alien or as intense as Aliens (though it does feel more whole than Alien 3 and less silly than Alien: Resurrection). I wanted more out of this movie and I get the feeling a lot of the most virulently disappointed thought so as well, but that doesn't mean that what's there isn't exciting and worth seeing. And it is, damnit!

In a way the people behind Prometheus kind of set itself up for a fall. How can you make a prequel that isn't a prequel and sell a movie connected to a known franchise and at the same time tell people that it has nothing to do with it? The confused sales pitch is strangely endemic of the final product itself.
 


I'm a sucker for the sort of massive world that Prometheus presents. I mean, I liked Avatar for fuck's sake. I like the idea of a science fiction film trying to do something big and audacious and at great cost. It's one thing to make a (find a low budget sci-fi film), but its another thing to make a movie about blue Indians for half of a billion dollars, especially when that film isn't necessarily a slam-bang action picture like Prometheus is. That takes a kind of combination of balls and madness that I appreciate. Avatar, is also a film that clearly put a lot of thought into building a world, even if almost none of the R and D ended up in the story. That is cool to watch.
 
And to further compromise my opinion, I actually enjoy Alien 3 (and Alien: Resurrection which, for my money, is Joss Whedon's greatest contribution to the craft of writing). And I enjoy it for some of the same basic reasons as I enjoyed Avatar, which is that it has enough crazy and interesting things in it to make it work despite all of its many, many flaws (also, despite popular opinion neither film is as colossally terrible as everyone says they are). A less creative director, I think, would have been satisfied with just making another version of Alien, but set in, I don't know, an airport, or just add even more aliens and assume that was going to work (hey, it did the first time!).

Instead they set the movie on a prison planet. With Double-Y chromosome offenders. And they're in an apocalyptic cult. And Ripley is pregnant.And bald. And there's Tywin Lannister.And they don't have a finished script. And everyone else died somehow! It might not be a great film (it isn't), but if you're going to fail at making a movie at least make it as batshit insane as humanly possible. At least no one can fault you for lacking creativity. (Sorry, William Gibson, but it just wasn't meant to be!)

Prometheus is better than either of these movies because it isn't just setting and it isn't just design, there is an actual film with actual ideas behind it. There are interesting things going on and even when it does swerve into the territory of the modern sci-fi/action movie, it does so in an equally weird and visually interesting way.

Just knowing that a movie as thunderously simple as Avatar exist and sequels as malformed as Alien 3 also exist that makes me feel that Prometheus is by comparison that much better of a film. Now there's a qualifying statement!



What is important to me is that Prometheus could present a modern starting point for popular science fiction. Soft science fiction and actiony pulp like The Avengers or Men in Black III already exist in droves, but this kind of bizarre and exploratory science fiction we haven't really had since the 1980's. I mean, again, I like Avatar, but that's the biggest sci-fi epic of our time? Come on! That's pathetic! We're a better people than that! (We're also a better people than to fall for gimmicks like 3D, but that's neither here nor there). Genres like science-fiction are more than set-ups for big fat explosions (not that I mind a big fat explosion every once and a while).

Dr. deGrasse Tyson is right, space is an exciting place, damnit! There's no reason it shouldn't be. New worlds, in whatever form they may be is something worth seeing in films. Instead of adapting comic books (oops) or rebooting franchises nobody remembers or cares about or making toys people hate into film or just generally trying to find new ways to get blood from a stone, let's go explore! And while Prometheus isn't a perfect film, it perfectly encapsulates the kind of benevolent insanity that makes film such a powerful medium.

I realize that independent films have been making clever science fiction movies for years (Primer, Time Crimes, Moon immediately pop to mind). There's no reason that should be and the sad reality is that film making has become so safe and so willfully stillborn that it's slowly started to eat itself. Iron Man 2 made six-hundred million dollars so of course they're going to make more Iron Man movies and more movies like it even if it wasn't any good. Popular films deserve to be smarter than they are, because if we relegate cleverness to the indy circuits we're going to end up with more Transformers and more Pirates of the Caribbean and we'll be fucked and we'd have deserved it and the terrorists will have won.

People aren't afraid of clever things. Inception proved this and Avatar proved that people want science fiction and Wall-E probed that people also want clever science fiction. If you give audiences the chance to see something smart or even something weird they will bite. People aren't dumb. They want to see amazing things and maybe Prometheus can be one more proof of that idea. Maybe it can prove that normal people to experience some goddamn art that is slightly unusual!

It's crazy enough that it just might work!

(And before you bring it up, don't even get me started about John Carter nee Of Mars. It's like Disney wanted that film to fail.)

Mark Kermode was right in using the word "temerity" in regards to this film. The fact that it was made is almost pleasing enough to give it a pass. I don't need to though, because there is much more to like and ponder over in this movie besides the aesthetics. For all of its ambition, though, Prometheus doesn't hang together.

I love the Alien series about as much as I can love a franchise. My closet is packed with action figures and my bookshelves have at least three different aliens protecting them.It's not enough, though, so say that the sequel (fingers-crossed) will fix all or the extended cut will give us further insight (it worked for Kingdom of Heaven!). The movie is quite good and the real shame isn't that it's an Alien film that is quite good, it's that it's a massively budgeted sci-fi film with a perfect cast and director that is only "quite good."

Then again, if every mistep in film were more like Prometheus cinema would be in a much healtheir place.

Anyways, I don't completely agree with the good doctor (or his correspondents). Here's his review, though, because, hey, what's wrong with a second opinion?At least he seems to know what the hell he's talking about.

(Actually, before we get to that I pretty much agree with the guys at Half in the Bag, even if I am slightly more enthusiastic about the movie than they are.)



Also: I am going to endeavor to find my award winning essay on gender and sexuality in the movie Alien. If not for you then for my inevitably compromised grad school application.



So, here come the Spoilers. Fuck off if it's not July 2013 if you don't want that sort of thing.

*Where did all of the medical professionals go? I think one of them got killed by the Engineer, right? Where did everyone else go? Also, Lisbeth Salander had to cut that thing out of her and she was supposedly quarantined, right? Then why the hell were they letting her loose if she was infectious? They torched one guy over the exact same thing, but they let her run around in fucking ace bandages, covered in blood and monster crud? Come on. You're a better movie than that. Also did her doctors just evaporate? Or did the captain accidentally incinerate them too?

*I really am not alright with the amount of mysteries that were solved in this movie. Does the conclusion just mean that the eponymous alien was a bio-weapon? I guess it means that it might be and it might mean that it was itself taken from an alien world. Overall the mystery of the movie Alien and the Alien series was an integral part of the whole thing. To dispel it-- however successfully it may or may not have done so-- is fairly off-putting. I'd say it was blasphemy if I was any more entitled. . . Actually thinking back on it I've found people complaining about the exact opposite problem-- Not enough was explained. There were too many mysteries. It seems you can't please everyone.

*When I ask stupid nerd questions what I am really hoping for is this lengthy response to fan mail by James Cameron regarding Aliens. It's not as interesting as an article as it is as a thing that exists. Can you imagine him pulling that for Avatar? Or anyone? For anything?

*Needs more Giger.

*I kind of want to see it in 3D now. You know, for research purposes.

*Here's a list of questions about the black goo. I have no answers for this. This is frustrating. Also I'm linking to the Huffington Post and I hate that site.

*The whole beginning reminds me of The Cave of Forgotten Dreams mostly because several of the paintings were taken verbatim from the Chauvet caves. That isn't over-education, that's just memory. What's more is that cave painting rarely ever included people (as I understand it), so the juxtaposition of the key paintings of people and paintings of horses taken from a cave and an era that had no paintings of people is an odd thought to have, I realize.

Mostly I thought "Oh, jeese! You better seal off the entrance or you're going to expose those paintings to decay!" There are hostile aliens romping around and the whole premise of the movie revolves around technology that doesn't exist, yet, there I was sitting next to my dad wondering how they were going to preserve those paintings.

*This movie has a border terrier in it! I have a border terrier! My puppy is in Prometheus! And on Mars!

*Wait, so does this mean that AvP is in continuity? Could it not be? Please?

*Regarding David's Fate: Did we need one more android being decapitated? I get the reference. Most people probably get the reference, but that's the third android in five films to be specifically decapitated. (UPDATE: My friend Sef has corrected me that Bishop still had a few of his upper bits left in Alien 3. I will concede the point. . . but still!).

*Fritz Coleman was at the theater with me. This is irrelevant to the overall experience, but I just wanted to put that out there: Weatherman Fritz fuckin' Coleman.

*Lisbeth Salander's whole birth scene kind of got undercut with my knowledge of the fact that The Fly exists. . . I guess that might be true of the snake V. arm scene, as well.

*Watching David watch Lawrence of Arabia means that there must be a massive catalog of films on the Prometheus. I mean, it's 2093, you could probably fit the entire catalog of America film onto a thumb drive and still have room left-over for some mission critical pornography. In the two years on board he must have watched a lot of films. Does that mean he watched Blade Runner? I'm reminded of zombie movies where none of the survivors seem to exist in a world without zombie films. I'm not asking for metatext here, I'm just wondering if David ever got around to watching Metropolis. Or Isaac Asimov for that matter?

*Was David's head exactly where it was. . . left or did it actually shift around afterwards? I'll have to double check this, because it'll bug me either way.

*I was going to mention this earlier, but even I realized I was getting too rambly. What I wanted to say was that for some reason Sunshine didn't pop to mind except when I saw one of the actors and I thought, "Is that the other Asian guy in Sunshine?" Maybe! Only Ridley Scott can know for sure! Now if there's a perfect example of two-thirds of a great film, I don't know what is.

*Also, for the record, Alien 3 has a xenomorph in it, which might just compromise my stance on this entire swathe of artistic expression. I also like Terminator 4 mostly because it did speak to the action figure collector inside of me. Or maybe it all just stems from my inborn weakness for James Cameron? By the way, where is my Abyss sequel? Come on, Hollywood, get with it!

*I should buy the BFI book on Alien. Does that exist? I should find out.

*Regarding the crew's hyper-sleep: That scene has to be there because it ties the film back into the mythology of Alien, which always has a waking up scene of some variety. My question is that because David is left to his own devices to maintain the ship (and presumably deal with any emergencies that may arise) then why was Bishop also put into deep freeze? I understand why this was done at the end of Aliens, but why in the beginning? I guess so that we can have the reveal that he's a "goddamn robot," but isn't that an inconsistency or am I just being anal? I feel like that is the most minor of problems in the whole course of this film.

*Oh, shit, I just remembered how Ash fit into all of this. Man. That's a whole other thing I've got to worry about now, isn't it?

*I say this with all of the affection in the world, but Prometheus reminded me of a two hour long Fallout Vault mission. It's all there. It's a self-contained, mysterious structure that is crammed full of occult science crap. There's mad science, there's conflicting interests, and there's a bunch of memorable set pieces. I think coming at it from this direction this movie is a lot more pleasing because instead of big answers you get a lot of questions and this weird, singular slice of this bigger and more malevolent world. But maybe that's just making excuses? My big point is that this movie does fit rather well into the tradition of a one-off sci-fi tale.

*The fact that I've spouted on for 3,000 words means that it's good, right? It has to.

Isn't that something?

I know posting Carl Sagan videos is kind of cliched and easy, but. . .fuck it. This is pretty cool.