• Gregory Ellwood slams “Everybody’s Fine,” calls last night’s AFI festivities a Miramax wake. I’m having trouble disagreeing with him. [Awards Campaign]
• Rebecca Milzoff gets some face time with “An Education” director Lone Scherfig. [Vulture]
• Jim Carrey’s Scrooge rings in the holiday spirit. [Associated Press]
It seems the 30th anniversary of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” unfortunately came and went back on May 25 before I even snapped to its attention. I’ve never been a dedicated disciple of the film but it is unquestionably a staple of science-fiction cinema, a film packed with ideas that also succeeds at terrifying audiences both psychologicall and viscerally. It’s peculiar that Scott hasn’t approached that level of thoughtful filmmaking in the 30 years since.
Over at The Auteurs’ Notebook, Ben Simington has dedicated a healthy word count to the film, which is currently engaged in a one-week run at New York’s Film Forum to celebrate the anniversary with a new 35mm print of the 2004 director’s cut. What I found particularly revealing, was Simington’s commitment to dissecting the film’s exemplary production design and set decoration. “To say that Ridley Scott’s commercial breakthrough was robbed of its Oscar for Best Art Direction/Set Direction is a pathetic understatement,” he writes, “not only about the film in its own right, but also about the film within the history of moving-image arts.”
Simington proceeds to spotlight key design elements that stuck out to him in a recent Film Forum screening, everything from the usual detail-oriented ornamentation of work spaces to more abstract interpretations read into nude pin-up posters in tandem with a photo of fried eggs. It’s fascinating stuff, but it really catches stride for me when Simington writes up artist H.R. Giger’s contribution to the film’s architecture.