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jgm4661 (83)
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Movie about the times
My Take
The title and James's cloning
Another funny teen dramedy on par with 'Booksmart'
Nice directing debut from Karen Gillan
Average movie here
Too sad
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I agree. It kind of reminds me of the very good Star wars reboots too, Rogue One, Solo etc after the shitty trilogy prequels. They have new characters but there are some ties to the original which is a good thing to tug on the nostalgia heart strings like the new SW films reintroducing Hans, Luke and Leia .
This story was very well written, there is a substitute of suspense for the massive body count of the later additions which works superbly like the original. The fear was the unknown: the intelligence of the alien, the new mutation possibilities and a large dose of surprise.
On second watch, this appears to be a sequel to the original. Rook mentions that the first alien jettisoned by Ripley into space actually never died. The species don't freeze and don't need to breath. He called them the 'perfect beings'. There is also anasteroid they dissect early in the movie which shows a fossil in the form of the xenomorph suggesting it became encased in rock at one time preserving it.
The film makers have researched the earlier films well and Romulus touches and reintroduces on many of their earlier themes w a fresh look. The film really parallels many of the story lines of the franchise . Waking up in the sleeping modules to the future urban dystopia with various research outpost where they are conducting genetic research, the robots who now have both good and bad programming depending on the usb chip , the weaponry though nor flame throwers this time to even the kooky 70s era computer systems.
There are chase scenes w the crab like form, an implant and birth using a human host, use of the black liquid to produce a hybrid human alien form from Prometheus, a close up kill, humans caught in alien webbing awaiting a pod, the fear of the acid blood on both humans and the ship, jettisoning the alien through a pressure lock etc- all good nostalgic fun.
The girl is a modern update really on Ripley, she matches wits w the xenomorphs while also battling a corrupted robot and is the last girl again.
Again, I thought it was a great entry, maybe the best since the original and definitely one of the best films of 2024 and a worthy watch.
The song meanings website has many comments about the metaphors. From John Fogerty's book Fortunate Son:
"pg. 195: That's really a protest song...I was going at it sideways. With "I went down Virginia," I'm talking about Washington, DC. "I watched the tower grow" is their Tower of Babel. I'm talking about the BS, really. Political spin. I think the song was done enough like a fable that you don't necessarily have to know what it all means or even worry about it.
pg. 320: "I went into "Who'll Stop the Rain," a song very much inspired by those times we lived through together (Vietnam)."
Not the only theme he also said it was about the crowds at Woodstock in the last verse, " heard the singers playing, trying to keep warm etc"
5 yr plans is about the 5 yr plans of the North Vietnamese for the country, New deals may be a reference to FDR's new deal.
Exactly. The remake of Eleanor was derived from the Jawbreakers Fern character. Mean Girls too w all the leaking of secrets and conniving friends.
Agree.This was supposed to be to be one of the best movies of 2023. It was a boring snooze fest It didn't' even really highlight his career. This guy did the score for West Side story.
Yes. He took some of the murders from Poe's stories and did a more modern update on them. Murders in the Rue Morgue involved and orangutang killing 2 people. Rue Morgue was a French Street , here Rue was the laboratory.
The Pit and the pendulum story had a pendulum too operated by a mad scientist as part of his torture dungeon. I saw this 60s movie back in the 70s on fright nite Tv movies, starring original terror master Vincent Price.
The 'Pit part' is a girl he tortured by gagging her and locking her in an 'iron maiden' - a cabinet w a small window. After they kill the Vincent Price character they brick up the pit so no one can ever use the torture deivices again. Unknowingly they entomb the girl still alive in the iron maiden.
The update was Griswold being bricked up. The original was much more terrifying.
Interesting as his character from Wikipedia is loosely based on John Thain at then Merrill Lynch (bought by Bank of America after they collapsed in 2008) and Dick Fuld ex CEO of Lehman Brothers ( note the name combo) . Both lost everything stock wise as Lehman went into bankruptcy and Merrill was sold for pennies on the dollar.
Maybe the firm in the movie was based on Goldman who were relatively unscathed in the crisis
The title is kind of misleading. The short was figurative not literal. What they bought was actually a form of insurance against a bond defaulting called a default swap ) CDS.
So you insure a bond w a value of $100 say and pay 2%/yr as an insurance premium. If the bond defaults, you get paid $100. Like if you insure a house and there is a fire , you get replacement value.
These bonds default if ~ 8% of the mortgages in them defaulted ( the bond pays say 8% interest, but if it loses 8% of teh mortgages it pays no interest and is worthless or in default) . So they saw that many of these mortgages would default and made this bet.
I think the movie sets out a few characters to represent generations. The main characters are boomers. Their lives didn't seem to follow a predetermined path as even they can't understand how such 'revolutionaries' could go on to make so much money ( Sam and Harold) or Nick who dislikes authority, takes drugs and still hasn't really grown up from the sixties.
As others have pointed out, Chloe is a Gen Xer who doesn't seem to have their sentimentality and deep friendship bonds.
Richard IMO is the from the Silent Generation or a baby boomer that followed a corporate path removed from the radical sixties lifestyle. As a grounded executive who works for a living, he knows life requires dedicated, hard work and it not 'being easy'. He also is part of the corporate patriarchy where there are ' aholes' at work to bow down too but you try and minimize that.
Alex giving up , he finds incomprehensible because when you have a family and a mortgage it simply isnt an option and he later concedes he cant speak for him.
Well it is just like any movie. What makes a movie is seeing the issues the key characters face and how they are resolved or not through the course of the film.
They arent necessarily always resolved to their benefit.
Blue Jay was the name of the Drive-in theater and you see it as they walk past in the film. They also mention it.
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