Last weekend I was at my old friend Ryan’s house, and he and his wife and I made a fire and rewatched ALIEN, which I love, but which I had not seen in six or seven years. Man, it definitely rules a lot. Just a perfect little movie if you think about it . . . and it has a sort of timelessness to it as well. Plus, like BLADE RUNNER, all the sets and effects held up. It looks just as good now as it ever did.

Afterwards we were talking about the other ALIEN movies, most of which are not particularly good . . . but I remembered how much I had liked God Emperor Ridley Scott’s PROMETHEUS, which was a sort of prequel to ALIEN. When I first saw it in 2012, I thought it was really neat that it hides this from you for basically half the movie. It can stand on its own, even if you’d never even seen the original ALIEN, which is something only a dude like Ridley Scott would be brave enough to do.

Ryan asked if I’d watched ALIEN: COVENANT, which is its direct sequel, and I told him I had not. I somehow didn’t even know that Ridley had done it. The guy is always making stuff, after all. Ryan and his wife told me I should watch it, and when they mentioned that a snakeskin-hat-wearing Danny McBride had a part as a Slim Pickens-esque starcruiser pilot . . . well now I really had no choice.

Next day around sundown, I got gummed up on a gummy and made coffee and sat down to watch it. I refuse to review a movie on the internet, but HERE’S THE SKINNY: I really dug it. It is not quite as good as PROMETHEUS, but it’s also not the exact same thing again . . . it does some genuinely weird stuff. It’s basically just ALIEN: THE ISLAND OF DR. MOREAU and Fassbender is basically just Roy Batty from BLADE RUNNER. Wow! Fassbender, by the way, spins this movie around on his index finger like a basketball . . . he’s really good in it.

Also, I was so spooked up on the spooky stuff that I immediately saw that this scene . . .

. . . was a clever allusion to that painting ISLE OF THE DEAD / DIE TOTENINSEL (which, they say, could be found in every Berlin home):

Without spoiling anything, and I’m sure you could have guessed anyway, but his use of this painting is also quite a foreshadowing!!!

(Coincidentally, the very next day I happened upon a Reddit thread where someone was asking for examples of paintings influencing movies. I shared this and at least twenty-five souls were goodly enough to gesture: “Yeah, man.”)

Last year, in anticipation of his 94th birthday, I spent April and May watching pretty much everything Clint Eastwood had ever directed and / or starred in, most of which I had already seen, but some I had not (like BRONCO BILLY, which touched my heart). Now in 2025, I remain an unmarried and childless loser, so my next meaningless endeavor is to watch all of Ridley Scott’s stuff because the dude is just straight cool and makes cool stuff. He’s taken a crack at pretty much every genre, and even when he doesn’t necessarily bullseye the thing, there’s always something cool inside it. That is why he is one of the Old Masters.

This is from a 2017 interview with Ridley around the time Disney was making those new STAR WARS movies:

You’ve watched other people take over franchises you’ve made. How often are you asked to do that? Has Kathleen Kennedy offered you a Star Wars movie?

No, no. I’m too dangerous for that.

Why is that?

Because I know what I’m doing.

Nuked em. And later, after NAPOLEON (which rules!) was poorly received by THE FRENCH, ol Ridley struck again:

God, that rules. And I mean . . . he ain’t wrong!

SIR Ridley Scott’s first film was THE DUELLISTS, which came out in 1977. By then he was 40 years old and had previously only directed commercials. It is excellent and stars a young Harvey Keitel. It’s insane to me that the dude went on to direct BLADE RUNNER only five years later. Now Ridley’s nearly 90 fuckin years old and he’s still making like three movies a year seemingly effortlessly. I love this guy!

Let’s take a look at what I have left:

Oh man . . . I’ll tear through these before the first golden ray of springtime casts its heavenly glow upon Berlin’s cobblestone streets. I’ll be done with this in a WEEK!! This is also the very first time I am learning of the existence of WHITE SQUALL, which according to Letterboxd stars Jeff Bridges and can be summed up thusly:

In 1960, a hardy group of prep school students boards an old-fashioned sailing ship. With Capt. Christopher Sheldon at the helm, the oceangoing voyage is intended to teach the boys fortitude and discipline. But the youthful crew are about to get some unexpected instruction in survival when they get caught in the clutches of a white squall storm.

Sure, why not! The guy gave us KINGDOM OF HEAVEN, for God’s Sake. Although I’m sure it ain’t exactly Shakespeare, I for sure trust Rid at the helm of a boat drama period piece starring Jeff Bridges.

Anyway: Thanks for ALIEN: COVENANT, Ridley. I really enjoy watching something that is dumb while also being extremely smart, and is lit well and sounds good, which is precisely what it is. It’s a good time at the movies is what it is, and also just a flat-out good horror movie, and lord knows those are usually, as the fella said, sleeping pills that are dog turds at the same time.

I will conclude this post in which I lavished praise upon English director Sir Ridley Scott with a line from his own movie, which is also something I think we’ve all said to a Tinder date at least once: