"Unacknowledged" by Michael Mazzola (2017)

Spiritually similar to "Zeitgeist", "Unacknowledged" is documentary that suggest that power, knowledge and most of all, secrets are in hands of small elite group that actually turns the wheels of the world. Now, nothing wrong with conspiracy theories - they can be very entertaining and perhaps contain a small grain of truth - but when faced with people who passionately insist they know the facts and gradually reveal themselves as boiling with frustration for whatever reason (because they were wronged on May 5th, 1998) it makes you wonder who actually has agenda here. 

Main focus of "Unacknowledged" is constant presence of Aliens on our planets and how - for whatever reasons - US government persistently hides this, in fact (as lots of people insist here) it annually spends huge amounts of $$$ to keep it all undercover, swept under the rug and away from public eye. So far, so good - I am more willing to accept the possibility that we are not the only living species in the whole Universe than to embrace church dogma - but after a while, when all these eyewitnesses start to sound gradually more and more paranoid, people claim they were threatened and professionally discredited (erased indeed) it gets a bit too much. Even poor Marilyn Monroe ends up being victim of secret government organisation who taped her phone conversations and decided to eliminate her before she spill the beans on press conference (pillow talk was apparently about Aliens). At certain point I must have dozed off because I missed why this guy was so upset that he almost started crying - than it turns out he was interviewed once and quickly dismissed as a loony - if you think about his frustration burning all these years, think about government officials who actually used energy, time and funds to deal with people like these. 

Documentary suggest that big, bad government men in black keep all secrets away from the public not because they want to prevent panic, but because they experiment with weapons and energy somewhere in desert. They don't want you to know possibilities of using free energy because big corporations want to keep you working and paying mortgage forever. Because if we know how to use free energy, we could all turn to happy vegans and grow our food in the gardens, without ever stepping a foot in supermarket. Even presidents apparently are not informed about this hush-hush operations because they are just temporary employees. Well, it was fine to watch - if nothing else, to make you start thinking - and my conclusion is that this is all a nonsense. NASA itself would welcome any informations about Alien presence because they could get more funds for research. While its true that the best strategy to deal with UFO eyewitnesses is to ridicule them (so people keep quiet rather than going public) I don't think that some big, bad secret service works against humanity somewhere deep in a basement - there is no them, just regular people who are probably exasperated with attention seekers. Most of all, US is not the whole planet Earth - even if (for whatever reasons) secret agents keep quiet about Aliens, there is a small inconvenience that we have rest of the planet where, alas, other governments would welcome a chance to start the first contact with Aliens - and to my knowledge it hasn't happened yet. I do believe we are not alone in the universe and perhaps we are being watched from a distance but maybe its better for us not to make any contact at all, as they might simply want to eat as all. As  H.P.Lovecraft would say "The oldest and strongest emotion of mankind is fear, and the oldest and strongest kind of fear is fear of the unknown."

"How Jesus Became God" by Bart D. Ehrman

After dry, moth-eaten and rusty book about the same subject by George Robert Stowe Mead (published 115 years ago) Ehrman comes as breezy, friendly and warm contemporary writer who speaks the language that I can understand, reference the things I know about (at one point even movie The Exorcist) and basically comes across not as a museum piece but as a someone from my own time who happens to know a lot about this subject and I would probably like to have him as a company on a desert island.

I read some of Ehrman previously ("Did Jesus Exist? The Historical Argument for Jesus of Nazareth") where he claims that there is no reason why we shouldn't believe there was a historical figure at certain point, but this is the first time I became aware how important it is to actually face contemporary writer instead someone who lived a century ago - Mead was fine for his time, I guess, but his writing style is D-R-Y and long winded for a modern reader - in comparison, Ehrman sounds like a good, knowledgeable friend. I just started and already enjoying the book very much - so far it explains that in ancient world it was not unusual for mortals to afterwards be worshipped as Gods, from Greek mythology to Roman emperors, but Ehrman promises to later go to the centre of problem and explain how did it happen that living, mortal figure of wandering preacher came to be recognised not as God's son but God himself. I was always sure there were lots of embellishments obstructing the real message of early Christianity and find the subject absolutely fascinating. 

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Finished - it got somehow tangled in the second part but this was to be expected as the whole myth grew bigger and more elaborate with time. Ehrman believes at the very bottom of the story there was a historical person who got executed by Roman officials - now comes the most interesting part: a most crucial link in the story (resurrection) might have been a complete fiction because "Roman practice was to allow the bodies of crucified people to decompose on the cross and be attacked by scavengers as part of the disincentive for crime." Taking in account that Pontius Pilate was known as a harsh and brutal governor who had no time for niceties - he famously looted Jewish temple to finance building of aqueduct and didn't wink at protests of locals - there is absolutely no logic in believing that he would do something against his will (as later Christians made him) or that he would allow body of executed criminal to be taken down from a cross and buried. Christians also invented a figure of wealthy Joseph of Arimathea who allegedly buried Jesus - "“a respected member of the council” (read: same Sanhedrins who previous night voted for Jesus execution) who suddenly changes his mind and asks for the body so he can bury him. This sounds like a complete fiction and has no logical or historical bass whatsoever - as a member of the council who previously insisted on execution, this person risks to much + earliest Gospels claim the whole council voted on execution, to make a long story short, it seems like from the moment of crucifixion the story takes another life and changes directions according to whoever had power and agenda at the time - and basing everything on the fact that the body disappeared from the grave, which might be a falsehood in the first place.

"Did Jesus Live 100 BC?" by George Robert Stowe Mead

The first book I read in 2018 and let's hope the rest won't be as dry and moth-eaten as this one. I love the subject and was always fascinated with the way certain idea can with time transform itself into something else completely - I don't care so much for the religious aspect of it, but my main interest is how and when embellishments (and other aspects) came in and changed cult of poor and downtrodden outcasts into the most powerful weapon of ruling classes. Without really planning or analysing it much, trough the years I read several highly idiosyncratic accounts of various authors who strongly disagree with official church dogma, each one usually more fantastic than the previous one - the only thing I got from them was idea about historical moment of ancient Middle East and how hugely different it was from where we are now. For example, the whole phenomenon of wondering preacher was quite common and Jesus was definitely not the only one. In fact, the more I think about it, the more it seems completely plausible that he is combination of several characters who might have suffered similar fate. 

When I look back, the best books I read about the subject so far were "The Passover plot" by Hugh J. Schonfield from 1965 and "Zealot: The Life and Times of Jesus of Nazareth" by Reza Aslan from 2014 - they both analyse the figure of Jesus Christ in historical context and try to understand social and political atmosphere in far away corner of Roman Empire that eventually nested the roots of future religion. Everybody else had different things to say but most of the authors I encountered focus on nitpicking trough the Gospels or any ancient documents and trying to find some chronological sense in all of this. For some reason I always found The Christ myth theory completely fascinating subject and could read about it forever, although this is actually nothing new, apparently people were writing books about it since 17th century (Voltaire was amongst the first, but of course he would be as he lived trough French revolution when such non-orthodox ideas were welcomed). 

In his time George Robert Stowe Mead was very well-known and respected scholar, academic indeed. And yes, the subject is fascinating and he treats it with utmost seriousness and care but no matter how you look at it, it is still something written 115 years ago and it shows its age on every page. I should have known better but joy in reading occasional old classic made me overlook the fact that most of the books published in early 1900s are rusty indeed. My first impression of Mead is that he was a classy, well educated gentleman and it shows in his literary "voice", the second impression was that he appears as an old, fussy university professor who gets tangled in too much information's. Actually when Meade write this book he was younger than me right now, but still he was a creature of completely different times and his stiff-lipped way of talking and explaining himself comes across as dry and long-winded. Going for the main core of the problem, he explores Talmud and what does it say about Jesus but it takes forever (and than some) to move from one chapter to another and at certain point (halfway trough) I got so exasperated with the whole crawling trough countless side notes that eventually I just skipped the darn thing and went straight for the ending. Still, there were some fascinating things Meade had to say - he discuss strange silence of usually well-informed Flavius Josephus about the subject of Jesus, truly abominable crimes during Crusades where out of religious intolerance Christians burned every roles of Talmud they could get their hands on (so it is actually a miracle we have anything left of it and probably badly translated), certain Queen Helena of Adiabene who (Jewish tradition claim) was ruler instead of Pontius Pilate and the odd little fact that the onion was a symbol of lasciviousness (!) - somewhere in there my favourite John the Baptist is also mentioned but Meade meanders so much that I actually gave up. I might read this properly if I was shipwrecked on desert island or locked up somewhere without anything else, but in the meantime I decided that it would be better idea to go for some modern day, contemporary writers like Bart D. Ehrman - for better or worse, the way he expresses himself is much closer to my own understanding and phrasing than long gone Meade who might have been well intentioned but he really belongs to Victorian England and it unfortunately shows at every page. 

"The Lost City of Z" by James Gray

Another airplane movie (that I watched while flying over continents and fighting fatigue) but actually this turned out completely different than I expected, perhaps better than I expected. It is advertised and packaged as adventure flick, almost something like Indiana Jones where halfway trough it transforms itself into existential search for purpose in life. Contrary to what I assumed, it was not your usual fast-food action jungle flick and the fact that I still remember it weeks after I saw it, speaks for itself.

Based on a book by David Grann (celebrated as one of the best books of 2009) and a real life character, "The Lost City of Z" is about British officer-turned-archaeologist Percy Fawcett and his adventures in than uncharted jungles of Amazon. At the beginning of the movie we are told that Fawcett might be more than capable and deserving medals & promotions like other officers, but in words of some stiff-lipped official "he was the most unfortunate in his choice of ancestors". Now, this caught me completely off guard and from this moment on I was really engaged - imagine the world where no matter what capabilities and talents person might have, his own background might constantly keep him away from success in life. This scene also explains Fawcett's frustration and his character - for duration of this biopic, Fawcett is fuelled not only by intellectual curiosity and passion of adventurous archaeologist but his main motivation is ambition to make a name for himself, to prove himself to respectable members of Royal Geographical Society. That his family life has to suffer - he is eventually sent to South America to map some forsaken corners of jungles - is taken as a right thing to do for a man of his social status. For my part, I see it today as a unnecessary and quite selfish task ("sorry honey, here you go, take care of the kids and house, I am going away for several years into some damn jungles and maybe won't come back alive, but you know, I might get few medals and we will be invited for dinners with Duke") however we are talking about world more than hundred years ago, so obviously back than people had different perspective. 

Charlie Hunnam plays real-life Fawcett and he is actually genuinely good as a frustrated man striving for some official recognition for his talents. In our modern world we might not exactly understand such burning desire to be accepted (I'd say to hell with any society that wants me to be its member) but Fawcett lived in different times. There is a scene where his wife said something deeply profound, like "a man reach should exceed his grasp, or whats the heaven for" (this was to show how much she supported and understood him) and though it doesn't sound very deep on the paper, in the contest of the story it makes a perfect sense, I actually liked it very much. On and off into adventures Fawcett goes and the movie basically follows his life and adventures, it is quite gripping story and if you are not familiar with it, the end is surprising - not what I expected at all - it is fairly moving and it inspired me to read more about Fawcett, I might even go for the book that inspired this movie, although critics hated it and claimed the author made hero of someone completely obscure and undistinguished. These critics are probably related to the same people who found Fawcett the most unfortunate in his choice of ancestors. 

"Prometheus" by Ridley Scott (2012)

Thirty-three years after original 1979. "Alien" movie, director Ridley Scott returns to the saga that he initially started. In the meantime both Scott and his brainchild lived highly visible and successful lives - director went from strength to strength with awe-inspiring body of work ("Thelma & Louise", "Gladiator" and "Kingdom of Heaven" amongst others) while "Alien" saga continued under various directors as mega-blockbuster franchise, each sequel moving away from Scott's initial claustrophobic horror vision into high-tech/action/shoot 'em up territory. Even Sigourney Weaver became disillusioned with the whole point of continuation of it. Scott was intrigued with the idea but on his own terms - he would not go for just another sequel, but approach it from different perspective, as a prequel.

Basic idea is similar to rules of "Alien" franchise - spaceship with human population arrives somewhere and is attacked by dangerous life forms - however, Scott is not interested in weapons and pyrotechnic displays but uses the setting to explore the serous ideas like creation of life, faith and parent/child relationship. Best of all, in the thirty three years since the original, technology had improved so much that now Scott is able to use completely different set of weapons on his disposal - movie is stunning visually, both inside of the spaceship and outside in a storm-infected planet. Instead of Weaver, now we have two strong female characters (Noomi Rapace and somewhat underused Charlize Theron) but the main star of the movie is excellent Michael Fassbender as emotionally detached android created to serve his master-programmer and who shows strong intellectual curiosity that keeps the viewer guessing about his real motives. Aliens and facehuggers are fine but personally I was far more interested in relationship between human crew of scientists and mysterious engineers who might had created us as humans (hence the title, its not just the name of spaceship) - were we just an experiment? Did they changed their mind and what made them re-consider it? If they created us, who created them? Is there an omnipotent God? 

Actually - to my biggest embarrassment - I have seen this movie originally in the cinema at the time of its release and promptly fell asleep, how about that. Recently, however I watched "Alien: Covenant" and somehow everything fell in a right place: I got so curious about the whole series that I treated myself with all of them in chronological order, so at this point I was completely primed and stimulated to watch the rest, in fact there was no question about watching this again, I just had to. Now I think it's excellent.

"Alien Resurrection" by Jean-Pierre Jeunet (1997)

Fourth chapter in "Alien" saga and probably my least favourite, "Alien Resurrection" is set 200 years after the previous movie and has Sigourney Weaver fighting the Aliens with a help of paid mercenary warriors who arrive on a military spaceship where secret experiments are made. This time Weaver is strangely sympathetic to Aliens and eventually we find the reason why. The medical team and government officials are bad guys here and mercenary warriors just a necessary victims that get chewed along the way.

Its back to action - shoot them, run, scream and swim - which is unfortunate because at certain points this saga hinted at deeper, more substantial directions where the story could go. If 1979. original was tense and atmospheric and 1992. version dared to ask some serious questions about faith and redemption, this one avoid anything remotely meaningful and simply goes for pyrotechnics. It also has deeply disturbing final sequence that got stuck in my brain, there is something awful in that even though we understand the creature is not human. Winona Ryder (of all people) has surprisingly strong turn as young member of paid criminals and we gradually find out there is much more to her than her youthful sulkiness. At this point, Weaver is already such unusual character that she is just a resemblance of her previous 1979. self - she is highly effective and a joy to watch but it made me wonder isn't this sort of restrictive pigeonhole, because its hard to watch her in anything else after this (I have to see something else now by her). I perfectly understand her reluctance to continue with the saga because at this point it appears as her character has come to cul-de-sac that comes close to parody.

"Alien 3" by David Fincher (1992)

Like some futuristic Robinson Crusoe, Sigourney Weaver gets marooned on a windswept, godforsaken corner of the universe - it is in fact, prisoners colony and everybody is immediately disturbed because inmates have not seen woman in ages (and definitely not the one like this) + messages from the corporation insist this strange intruder is of utmost importance. Unknown to inhabitants of this deserted, apocalyptic place, Weaver is not the only visitor.

Spiritually closer to the psychologically tense and scary original, "Alien 3" combines the best of both worlds, claustrophobic atmosphere of 1979. movie and pyrotechnics fuelled action of 1986. version. Although panned by critics, in my personal opinion it surpasses ho-hum gun-toting predecessor because it suggest desolation, depression and utter isolation of prisoners who have nothing going on for them - they are left here to slowly die out and nobody is going to forgive or help them. They even don't have any weapons because nobody is going to escape relatively safe buildings and run into emptiness around them. When Alien starts running around, prisoners face the basic fight for survival and its clearly shown how lonely they are - they are forced to fight together or die. Yes, there is a lot of action, fire, running, screaming and special effects by far exceed anything seen in series so far, but for me the main interest lies in atmosphere of doom and utter isolation of the place. Sigourney Weaver is excellent as usual, though Charles Dance initially seems partner worthy of her, he is really charismatic actor. I couldn't care less what critics said, because it is actually highly effective and it reminds me on "Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome" but without those annoying children. 

"Beti Jurković" EP by Beti Jurković (1961)

If Ivo Robić and Rajka Vali stand as a respectable pioneers of post/WW2 pop music in Croatia and the roots of the family tree that later sprouted new branches, these venerable ancestors inspired the second generation of singers who came right after them, on the wave of than-popular local variations of San Remo: almost everybody who started in the late 1950s were crooners who, at various degrees grew up idolising American pop singers and emulated whatever they could. 

It took me awhile to warm up to Beti Jurković because she sounds so sunny and ebullient - eventually I accepted that this was her trademark and not unlike her Slovenian counterpart Marjana Deržaj, Jurković basically built her repertoire from swing and dixieland covers (they often worked with the same people and even recorded several duets). Gifted with cheerful voice, clear diction and bright disposition, on her first EP recording (released on Belgrade's PGP RTB as a part of their series of dance music recordings) she swings trough collection of international covers and is backed by elegant orchestra that never strays too far from the melody. Considering this was the era when international pop artists were already singing rock, this tame little recording might sound as a throwback to previous decade - nothing wrong with the singer who chirps and croons as she was told, but apparently local discography was still in early stage when certain rules had to be followed and anything individual was strongly discouraged. For the rest of the decade Jurković focused on pop festivals and later slowly disappeared from view as the music business changed. 

"Aliens" by James Cameron (1986)

James Cameron steps in and brings his own vision - the main difference between the original and the sequel is that original was atmospheric, claustrophobic and focused on evil lurking in the dark. This time everything is done on much larger scale, pneumatic and mostly brightly lit - it is unrepentant action movie with ho-hum soldiers swaggering around with some heavy weapons and even Sigourney Weaver gets to blast everything with flamethrower. Although I perfectly understand the logic behind continuing profit-making franchise, it steps away from original idea that was genuinely terrifying because it played with our fear of unknown and focuses on crowd-pleasing pyrotechnic effects, explosions and thunderous destructions, therefore leaving me oddly involved - no wonder I didn't watch it back in the day, because this type of movies didn't appeal to my younger self and still don't. 

Paul Reiser is the most interesting character here, because he represents corporate greed that puts financial interests before anything else and he is ready to sacrifice everybody for the sake of $$$ - we can almost see little wheels turning in his cash-register brain every step of the way and the way he calculates possibilities of returning like hero and getting rich out of it is scariest than any of malevolent beings that harass human characters. The rest of the characters (or the story) is basically cartoon-like, nothing to analyse here in depth since focus in on action, shooting and screaming. Where previously we encountered treacherous android, this time Lance Henriksen is a good one. And instead of frantically searching for the cat (like in original) this time Weaver runs around to save a child - it is explained with her traumatic personal experience but personally I always found children in action movies being just a nuisance, this one not exception, mainly being here just to hinder the escape and fall into abysmal pits from where she needs to be rescued. I think this cooled me off the whole saga for a while. 

"Alien" by Ridley Scott (1979)

Since I enjoyed "Alien: Covenant" so much, I decided to go back and watch the original trilogy that somehow escaped me back in the day. The reason why I never bothered earlier is perhaps because I was so familiar with the image of sweaty Sigourney Weaver waving weapons around the spaceship that somehow I just assumed that I have seen it - wrong, I have actually never seen it before and as for everything there is a season, obviously the right time for this. And the right frame of mind.

It would be safe to assume that almost 40 years old SF movie will appear dated because technology improved so much in the meantime that whatever special effects artists had at their disposal at the time is quaint nowadays. Wrong - because "Alien" don't depend on special effects and director Ridley Scott insisted that everything is hidden in the shadows and only hinted at, the fear and horror is still genuinely gripping. Of all the movie directors I know, Scott resembles Stanley Kubrick the most in a sense that he follows Kubrick's certain atmospheric uneasiness, the space is cold and foreboding, people are basically small and vulnerable in all that emptiness. The plot is by now too-well known to go into details, in short we have space ship with coffee-guzzling, cigarette-smoking crew that appears strangely mismatched (therefore very realistic, just as any regular team forced to work together) and as they find strange signal coming from a small planet, they are obliged to follow the procedure and investigate its source. Just in my worst nightmares, alien life proves not to be peace-bringing and wise, but malevolent and dangerous indeed. 

The movie is still indisputably scary and disturbing - it is perhaps more horror that SF, come to think of it - and Scott plays with audiences not unlike Hitchcock, where we are watching something, fully understanding that unpleasant things might happen just around the corner. It kind of starts slow but it builds the tension to almost unbearable degree and once the action start rolling, I smoked almost the whole pack of cigarettes and was occasionally glancing at the dark around me.

When the movies are really good, I start imagining myself in the story and this one had me totally involved. Sigourney Weaver became world-famous overnight because of this movie and deservedly so, it is quite unusual role that has nothing to do with meek girlfriends or quietly suffering mothers usually depicted on screen, she is serious kick-ass authority and someone capable of holding that position. Just leave the fucking cat! Aaargh! 

"Pilgrimage" by Brendan Muldowney (2017)

Small-budget historical movie that uneasily totters between action and philosophy - the trailer was misleading, because it promised lots of sword fights and hacked limbs but in fact it wasn't about this at all: it was also one of those movies where you sit patiently, waiting for something really important to happen, just to realise it's almost finale and that's all there is to it. 

Main star attraction here is "Walking dead" star Jon Bernthal who probably brought audience here - I understand the reasons why he thought this might be better than average action fluff US cinematography usually offers, but the results are somewhat underwhelming, despite Bernthal's best efforts. You see, Bernthal character is a mysterious, mute stranger who found solace and refuge amongst medieval Irish monks and is now given task to follow them trough dangerous & treacherous terrains, where they must to travel with some highly important religious relic to deliver it to Rome. Nowadays, transport of anything like this would take just a few hours but in medieval world this was a journey that takes months and of course all sorts of enemies lurked everywhere. Monks themselves are quite gullible and inexperienced (youngest of them is novice Tom Holland who has never been anywhere outside of monastery) so they are easy prey, but the enemy turns out not to be who we expect. Bernthal has several highly effective fight scenes - he is kind of gladiator and unfortunately movie just hints that his character has some mysterious past but never explores it - while there is also a very strong part played by Stanley Weber who represents evil power of manipulation and zealotry. The reason I didn't find this satisfactory was that movie actually promises much more - it could have been completely different story, with deep message about faith, redemption and greed but it goes too often for sword fights so its neither here or there. Somebody like Ingmar Bergman would approach it from different perspective and completely avoid bombastic music and fights. 

“Alien: Covenant” by Ridley Scott (2017)

Sixth movie in the "Alien" saga, this one was quite gripping. In fact, it was so good that I seriously considered to go back and watch the whole darn serial from the start, since I forgot lot about it and was just vaguely familiar with image of Sigourney Weaver being tortured by slimy Alien creatures. It might be that I actually never watched it and just assumed that I did. It also perfectly fits with my idea of Alien life potentially being very dangerous to humans, something that I take very seriously (just look at our own planet Earth, every time two civilisations collided, one usually swallowed and conquered another).

"Alien" movies, just like all successful series ("James Bond" for example) play around similar theme that doesn't really change with times: space ship populated with human crew usually finds a contact with Alien life and goes to search out more about it, just to find themselves completely overpowered by life forms completely different than themselves, who wants to either eat or impregnate them. It all started with director Ridley Scott almost 40 years ago, but various directors brought their own vision to franchise and actors changed with time. For this, latest sequel (prequel?) Scott comes back and he is excellent, not just as now extremely elderly (80) master of cinema but as superior artist period - what he brings to this modern-day chapter is not just spectacular visual treat but also a dark philosophy about creation of life, empty spaces and worlds devoid of any forms of life. Naturally, we don't have Sigourney Weaver anymore but completely different spaceship crew this time, with Katherine Waterston as grieving widow of ship's captain - just as Weaver before her, Waterston has to run, fight and shoot Aliens - like some futuristic Amazon, she is more than capable and we root for her. No less fascinating is dazzlingly versatile Michael Fassbender in a dual role of android - artificial intelligence at its best, that is supposed to be emotionless but it might not be so. I did have some doubts about logic of human crew stepping on a strange planet without any protection & getting all infected, but hey, this is SF movie after all and this saga has its own rules. Surprisingly, I enjoyed it so much that I watched it twice, imagine that. Designs are breathtaking and you simply must see the deserted town filled with towering sculptures carved from rock, it is something out of H.P.Lovecraft's nightmares.
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O.K. Now I have watched the whole darn "Alien" serial, original four movies + prequels, you name it, I treated myself with them all.

Perhaps it is true that for everything has to be the right time and place. Locked up in uncomfortable plane seat during 14-hour flight I ended up watching “Alien: Covenant” that for some reason impressed me enough to search for its predecessors. I actually treated myself with the whole darn serial, sequels, prequels, you name it. If there is a cartoon version, I would go for that one as well. I came to the point of wondering does my dog have alien inside, because she is constantly hungry. Going backwards, the story finally unfolded to me and now I am able to connect the dots and understand the occasional hints towards previous chapters.

No doubt, the whole purpose of this particular story is not any of the slimy alien creatures or even human crew placed conveniently on spaceship as their food but android Michael Fassbender who brings everything on higher level. Initially I was overwhelmed with all this technical wizardry to actually appreciate his role but now I (sort of) understand that Scott wanted to tie up the ends and finish story while he is still around to do it. I watched the darn thing twice and could easily watch it again, although (perversely) now I miss Sigourney Weaver and wonder what a team she and Fassbinder could have been if placed together. I started 2018 with "Alien" saga and it was unexpected thrill. 

"Wakefield" by Robin Swicord (2016)

The very first movie I saw in 2018 was this interesting drama - nothing ever happens without reason, so the movie came my way just when I was seriously pondering my professional life: how easy would it be to just step away from it all and simply leave stress to others. It is also highly unusual movie in a way that it completely avoids almost everything that recent cinematography focuses on - special effects, car crashes, explosions and crowd pleasing brutality - this is sophisticated, serious work of art where the only dialogue we hear comes from the main character cackling and laughing to himself. Its also tour de force of acting, marvellous work by Bryan Cranston.

Howard Wakefield (Cranston) is a successful businessman who at the beginning of the movie walks trough Grand Central Station like God, checking his cellphone and making decisions but during one particular Twilight zone evening, just as he arrives home from work, something distracts him and he ends in a empty house opposite of his own. From the attic window he peeks at his own family, lights, wife, children and life he had - in a spur of the moment, Wakefield decides not to return home - perhaps it was just a cruel joke played on his wife (later we find out that marriage was loveless) that he meant to finish in the morning, but when dawn arrives, he decides he is not going back. In fact, he is not even going back to work, to Hell with it all. From now on, Wakefield lives like hermit in the attic of the empty house, laughs at the people he sees from the window and gleefully spies on his family - who, to his biggest surprise, after initial shock seems to get on just fine (in fact, they are far happier without him). With time life simply goes on, with family next door enjoying sudden freedom, while Wakefield himself realises he might have been to oppressive and tyrannical with them - as for himself, he is completely free from the previous life, credit cards, cellphones and business - now he metamorphoses into trash man, unkempt and bearded, who roams the garbage cans for food. I found it absolutely fascinating and highly unusual work of cinema, quite unforgettable.

Welcome 2018

Although, realistically speaking, we understand that one night between December and January shouldn't really make any difference at all - the sun rises and sets just as always - like little children we always keep a hope that this will be beginning of something else, better and happier. For a change, this year I decided not to burden myself with any decisions, resolutions or must-do things whatsoever. Que sera, sera. If anything, there are certain health issues that might be corrected (if not completely erased, ageing is inevitable after all) and instead of torturing myself with self-imposed tasks, I am simply grateful for being still here, still around to enjoy the wonder of the sunny mornings and affections of handful close friends, nothing else matters.

Since nicest thing that happened so far in 2018 was this beautiful message from a Chinese cookie, I decided to officially start the New Year on this blog with a poem that describes my feelings. It is actually just a part of much longer poem by Helen Hunt Jackson so if you are inclined, you can find more about her. For some reason poetry was always kind of neglected on this blog so here's to the new, fresh start:

"Always a night from old to new!

Night and the healing balm of sleep!

Each morn is New Year’s morn come true,

Morn of a festival to keep.

All nights are sacred nights to make

Confession and resolve and prayer;

All days are sacred days to wake

New gladness in the sunny air.

Only a night from old to new;

Only a sleep from night to morn.

The new is but the old come true;

Each sunrise sees a new year born."