Read my thoughts here, from post #32: http://theartofsound.net/forum/showt...e-CINEMA/page4
Marco.
Main System
Turntable: Heavily-modified Technics SL-1210MK5G [Mike New bearing/ETP platter/Paul Hynes SR7 PSU & reg mods]. Funk Firm APM Achromat/Nagaoka GL-601 Crystal Record Weight/Isonoe feet & boots/Ortofon RS-212D/Denon DL-103GL in Denon PCL-300 headshell with Funk Firm Houdini/Kondo SL-115 pure-silver cartridge leads.
Paul Hynes MC head amp/SR5 PSU. Also modded Lentek head amp/Denon AU-310 SUT.
Other Cartridges: Nippon Columbia (NOS 1987) Denon DL-103. USA-made Shure SC35C with NOS stylus. Goldring G820 with NOS stylus. Shure M55E with NOS stylus.
CD Player: Audiocom-modified Sony X-777ES/DAS-R1 DAC.
Tape Deck: Tandberg TCD 310, fully restored and recalibrated as new, by RDE, plus upgraded with heads from the TCD-420a. Also with matching TM4 Norway microphones.
Preamps: Heavily-modified Croft Charisma-X. LDR Stereo Coffee. Power Amps: Tube Distinctions Copper Amp fitted with Tungsol KT-150s. Quad 306.
Cables & Sundries: Mark Grant HDX1 interconnects and digital coaxial cable, plus Mark Grant 6mm UP-LCOFC Van Damme speaker cable. MCRU 'Ultimate' mains leads. Lehmann clone headphone amp with vintage Koss PRO-4AAA headphones.
Tube Distinctions digital noise filter. VPI HW16.5 record cleaning machine.
Speakers: Tannoy 15MGs in Lockwood cabinets with modified crossovers. 1967 Celestion Ditton 15.
Protect your HUMAN RIGHTS and REFUSE ANY *MANDATORY* VACCINE FOR COVID-19!
Also **SAY NO** to unjust 'vaccine passports' or certificates, which are totally incompatible with a FREE society!!!
The first hour and a half felt like Prometheus, and the last half hour felt like Alien/Aliens (only not as good). I need to see it again as a lot of things didn't make sense, and even though I've got an unlimited monthly cinema pass, I'm loathe to pay out the money for a drink and munchies to do so.
SPOILER!! (highlight text beneath)
What was with the alien slowly 'bursting' from the chest and coming out really slowly, gradually coming to a pose like it had just won some Iron Man marathon?! Sub par CGI too, just looked so fake.
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I'm Allen.
I went and viewed the film , bit Mehh
Good CGI , story a bit naff somewhat predictable
I preferred the older Alien when you only had a glimpse of the Alien then your mind could run wild
I also mis a rather fit Ellen Ripley , Coor
Last edited by Audio Al; 26-05-2017 at 04:36.
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Yeah.. went and saw it as well.. against best instincts.. I took an ill advised chance.
Frankly it was a complete waste of time I will Never recapture.
Can I ask a question ??
I posted a review I wrote of the movie and it was spoiler-free, like all my reviews. There was no link to it, just the text.
Can I ask why it was removed ??
Linn Sondek LP12, Ittok, AT-F7
Schiit Mani MK1 Phono Pre-Amp
Nobsound NS-08P Bluetooth pre-amp
Marantz CD5004 CD Player
Pure DAB tuner
2 x Meridian 205 monoblock power amps
Tannoy T225 "Mayfair" speakers
www.paulridgeblog.com
Nothing's been removed here, Paul....
Marco.
Main System
Turntable: Heavily-modified Technics SL-1210MK5G [Mike New bearing/ETP platter/Paul Hynes SR7 PSU & reg mods]. Funk Firm APM Achromat/Nagaoka GL-601 Crystal Record Weight/Isonoe feet & boots/Ortofon RS-212D/Denon DL-103GL in Denon PCL-300 headshell with Funk Firm Houdini/Kondo SL-115 pure-silver cartridge leads.
Paul Hynes MC head amp/SR5 PSU. Also modded Lentek head amp/Denon AU-310 SUT.
Other Cartridges: Nippon Columbia (NOS 1987) Denon DL-103. USA-made Shure SC35C with NOS stylus. Goldring G820 with NOS stylus. Shure M55E with NOS stylus.
CD Player: Audiocom-modified Sony X-777ES/DAS-R1 DAC.
Tape Deck: Tandberg TCD 310, fully restored and recalibrated as new, by RDE, plus upgraded with heads from the TCD-420a. Also with matching TM4 Norway microphones.
Preamps: Heavily-modified Croft Charisma-X. LDR Stereo Coffee. Power Amps: Tube Distinctions Copper Amp fitted with Tungsol KT-150s. Quad 306.
Cables & Sundries: Mark Grant HDX1 interconnects and digital coaxial cable, plus Mark Grant 6mm UP-LCOFC Van Damme speaker cable. MCRU 'Ultimate' mains leads. Lehmann clone headphone amp with vintage Koss PRO-4AAA headphones.
Tube Distinctions digital noise filter. VPI HW16.5 record cleaning machine.
Speakers: Tannoy 15MGs in Lockwood cabinets with modified crossovers. 1967 Celestion Ditton 15.
Protect your HUMAN RIGHTS and REFUSE ANY *MANDATORY* VACCINE FOR COVID-19!
Also **SAY NO** to unjust 'vaccine passports' or certificates, which are totally incompatible with a FREE society!!!
Weird.
I thought I'd posted a review I'd written for my column in a free-paper down here
I must be going nuts
Here it is anyway - SPOILER-FREE
ALIEN COVENANT
Sixth movie in the popular sci-fi horror series which picks up the story eleven years after the events in Prometheus. Directed by Ridley Scott and starring Michael Fassbender, Katherine Waterston and Billy Crudup.
Although Captain Scott himself is back at the helm, the first hour of this 122min sci-fi adventure really doesn't feel like an Alien movie at all. There's lots of scene setting (catching up from Prometheus), early character development (crew banter), drama (boom!) and so on, but it still doesn't feel creepy enough. Or scary. Or violent. Or even tense .. and what you really want from an Alien film is the ultimate in nail-biting, edge of the seat, looking through your fingers, pant-wettingly horrifying tension : it's why we love them.
Obviously, the original and the arguably superior sequel, Aliens, are masterpieces of the sci-fi-horror genre. Films three and four are also eminently watchable but for different reasons. They're more like ensemble movies that moved away from the traditional stand-off between Sigourney Weaver's Ripley and the monsters themselves. Charles Dance and Winona Ryder respectively make for two very interesting characters while Brian Glover makes anything he's in watchable for me and I really loved the prison setting for Alien3.
Prometheus dialled it all back, focusing instead on a lone female heroine battling one big, angry xenomorph : back to basics if you like. I love that movie. If you watch the original Alien immediately afterwards everything just clicks into place : that massive chair in the spaceship, all the unanswered questions .. everything just feels even better than it did first time round.
Which brings us to the question of why Covenant was made in the first place.
Well, putting aside the obvious financial element, it appears Ridley Scott still has some answers he wants to present to the world even if we don't yet know what the questions are.
To me, the series works as it stood before the movie was released and having sat through it my overwhelming response was that it was all a bit uneccessary. I've spoken to a few other people who've seen it and their views were mixed : some loved it, thinking it added greater detail to the creatures themselves, while others thought it was all a bit pointless and hoped there weren't any more. Well, Mr Scott has revealed already that there will be at least one, probably two and possibly four more films in the series, with the sequel to Covenant due to be released in early 2019. He's not hanging about, is he ?
The story itself focuses mainly on the synthetic android character, Walter, played absolutely dead straight by Michael Fassbender. Somewhat androgynous in appearance, Fassbender has nailed this role in both Prometheus and Covenant and here he actually plays both synths in the same movie. Don't worry - it's easy enough to tell them apart what with one having an American accent and the other sounding like a 1950s BBC newsreader, plus there's some messing about with hairstyles which also helps. It's not much of a spoiler to reveal that one of the synths has been fiddling with the evolution of the alien xenomorphs in a way not dissimilar to Dr Frankenstein himself. There's lots of lab scenes, anatomical drawings, bits of bodies in jars, that kind of thing ..
The crew of the Covenant are glad to find him and discover what happened to the Prometheus, which had disappeared a decade prior to their own mission launch.
.. and that's where we have to leave it for the plot, I'm afraid.
As usual with a horror movie, to say anything more would give the game away.
The second hour is a lot better than the first and the movie does finally begin to feel like a proper Alien picture should, though the ending is signposted way before it arrives, which again makes me wonder if everything's been dumbed down deliberately.
Generally, sci-fi and horror fans are switched on, passionate movie buffs who know their stuff, both about film-making as a whole and more specifically the canon of any given series, so what with that rather flat first hour feeling like sixty minutes of "Previously on Alien .." and then the obvious finale I was very disappointed.
I'd still recommend the film, don't get me wrong - it's way better than most of the pap on offer these days - but it could and indeed should've been much more than it was.
Linn Sondek LP12, Ittok, AT-F7
Schiit Mani MK1 Phono Pre-Amp
Nobsound NS-08P Bluetooth pre-amp
Marantz CD5004 CD Player
Pure DAB tuner
2 x Meridian 205 monoblock power amps
Tannoy T225 "Mayfair" speakers
www.paulridgeblog.com
Saw it today. I hate movies that pick all other previous ones up and dump them in the bin, this film does that. It was fine as far as it goes, but only if the others didn't exist, which they do. So it was annoyingly frustrating.
Regards Neil
What gets me is how do the alien versus predator films fit in?
In the first of those we discover a pyramid that is thousands of years old and has an alien queen inside.
How does that square with Covenant?
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