alien

A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #98: Alien: Earth

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When Alien came out in cinemas back in 1979, did anyone think at the time that this would turn into a franchise that is alive and kicking 46 years later, much like that Chestburster in Spaceballs? Last year brought us Alien: Romulus, arguably too much of a retread of the film that originally made us scream silently in space – but 2025 saw the release of Alien: Earth, a nine-part series created by Noah Hawley of Legion and Fargo fame. How does the xenomorph survive its transfer onto a new host: the streaming services? What do Hawley’s sensitivities and quirks as a storyteller bring to the table? Is this a necessary shot in the franchise’s arm, or is it more like a spurt of acid eating its way through the audience’s goodwill? Join Matt and Alan as they discuss these questions, provided that they’re not distracted by some leathery, slimy egg that just begs to be looked at up close.

P.S.: If this episode has whetted your appetite for all things xenomorph, make sure to also check out these episodes:

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A Damn Fine Espresso: September 2024

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We’ve talked about the Alien franchise before on our podcast, so we didn’t want to miss the opportunity presented by the release of the latest addition to the series, Alien: Romulus, which came out in August. Join Sam and Alan as they talk about Fede Álvarez’ return to the roots of the franchise. How successful is the movie’s ‘back to basics’ approach? How scary can the film be after an entire series has done a lot to strip its iconic set of monsters of their original mystery? What have Álvarez and his collaborators done to keep all things xenomorph fresh, how do they play with an almost overpowering legacy? And what about that unexpected return from the dead: an effective homage or a tacky reference?

For more thoughts on the long-running Alien franchise, check out the following podcast episodes:

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #187: The Alien in the High Castle

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Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness.

Inspired by Alan’s Scavengers Reign review in last week’s post, and his observation that the series looks as if Swiss Alien designer HR Giger had joined Studio Ghibli in the 1980s, I decided to follow the trail that Giger left behind since his untimely death ten years ago in his and my home country. It quickly turned out that the mothership of his creations these days is, fittingly, a museum in eerie Medieval castle St. Germain high on top of Gruyères, home of one of Switzerland’s most famous cheeses.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: My, xenomorph, what big teeth you have!

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Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

Sometimes it’s the diamonds in the rough of any medium that prove to be the most memorable – or so Matt argues in this week’s Six Damn Fine Degrees.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: I call the xenomorph ‘Bitey’!

The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

Remember that time when most of us were excited for Game of Thrones? When we’d look at the new cast members for the upcoming season and get even more excited? Sam’s interest in Game of Thrones began and, sadly, peaked with him bumping Jonathan Pryce in Dubrovnik, where he (Pryce, that is, not Sam) was filming for season 5 for what was at one point the hottest series on TV. Check out Sam’s Six Damn Fine Degrees for more on this encounter!

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A Damn Fine Cup of Culture Podcast #67: Second Chances – Two Androids called David

The Barista Collective6 Comments

What is it about films featuring androids called David that makes them, let’s say, not entirely successful with audiences and critics? Following their recent trip to the Stanley Kubrick Archive in London, Alan and Matt dedicate this this year’s Second Chances episode to two sci-fi films by iconic directors that are unlikely to feature on those directors’ best-of lists: Ridley Scott’s Alien prequel Prometheus (2012) and Steven Spielberg’s A.I. (2001). Both films have recently been revisited by critics who found more to like in them than they originally recognised. Will our baristas also enjoy these films better this time around? Or will the films fare worse the second (or third) time around? And just what is it about androids called David?

Also make sure to check out these past episodes:

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Six Damn Fine Degrees #69: You’re not on Tatooine anymore!

samlinder3 Comments

Welcome to Six Damn Fine Degrees. These instalments will be inspired by the idea of six degrees of separation in the loosest sense. The only rule: it connects – in some way – to the previous instalment. So come join us on our weekly foray into interconnectedness!

Coffeebreak for Ben Kenobi and Luke Skywalker in the Tunisian desert? They are certainly not on Tatooine anymore!

I must admit I get the trouble with sci-fi Mege so pointedly discussed in last week’s post: I was also never quite an ardent fan of the genre as such, finding some of the choices made for supposedly far away worlds oddly quaint and cheap and some of the rubbery prosthetic creatures designed so unbelievably comical that I was not at all convinced any future or outer world would ever look like that. Of course there were great exceptions along the way: the creatures in Alien are suitably scary and beautiful and its realist spaceship and crew utterly believable, Star Wars is identifiably a fairy tale in space rather than science-fiction, and Star Trek’s universally humanist message sugarcoated all the tech talk I didn’t quite understand.

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I’ll be in my trailer… watching trailers: In the Heights, everyone can hear you sing

The Barista CollectiveLeave a comment

Join us every week for a trip into the weird and wonderful world of trailers. Whether it’s the first teaser for the latest instalment in your favourite franchise, an obscure preview for a strange indie darling, whether it’s good, bad, ugly or just plain weird – your favourite pop culture baristas are there to tell you what they think.

Maybe Matt shouldn’t play games during a pandemic – because it seems that he mostly picks ones that translate this whole ‘social distancing’ thing into a video game format: first Journey, then Everybody’s Gone to the Rapture. Turns out that the most social contact he’s had in a game recently was in the ultra-Swiss folk horror game Mundaun, a grim little tale about deals with mysterious old men and disembodied goat heads that nonetheless talk fluent Romansh. At least that’s not something that the COVID-19 pandemic has been particularly well known for!

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The Rear-View Mirror: Alien (1979)

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Each Friday we travel back in time, one year at a time, for a look at some of the cultural goodies that may appear closer than they really are in The Rear-View Mirror. Join us on our weekly journey into the past!

alien screenshot I

Alien turns 40 this year, and due to (or despite of) its low-tech special effects, it has aged well. In 1979 the film was meant to benefit from Star Wars‘ success, and became a classic in its own right. Sticking with a female lead for a franchise is not unprecedented, but it was (and is!) rare enough for Alien to be studied for its feminist message. This is by no means the only subject which has been studied through (or sometimes projected onto) Alien. From post-humanism to themes of giving birth and even rape, the amount of scholarly and academic articles which have been written about this sparse sci-fi thriller is improbably large. For all the scholarly probing, though, Alien is an accessible film, and still an easy film to love. Scott says it was meant to be an “unpretentious, riveting thriller, like Psycho or Rosemary’s Baby”.

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It’s the pictures that got small

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This week I saw my first Hitchcock on the big screen. I grew up in the ’80s, which meant that I first and, more often than not, only saw the classics of cinema on TV – and in the ’80s that meant, what, screens that were 30 inches across if you were lucky? TVs were big, bulky monstrosities, but the screens weren’t particularly big – which was good, really, because television channels broadcast images that were relatively fuzzy. If you sat close enough to the screen so that it filled your field of vision (and you could smell that weird electric smell), what you saw was basically impressionist art.

North By Northwest

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