alien | the m0vie blog

428. Aliens – Special Edition (#64)

Posted on July 19, 2025 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This week, James Cameron’s Aliens.

57 years after the destruction of the Nostromo, Ellen Ripley is found adrift in space. Her account of a strange encounter with a monstrous creature is met with ridicule and scorn, particularly considering the colonisation of planetoid LV-426, where Ripley claimed to have found the alien. However, when the colony suddenly falls silent, it becomes clear that Ripley may not be entirely free of her trauma.

At time of recording, it was ranked 64th on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: alien, aliens, feminism, film, imdb, james cameron, Movie, podcast | Leave a comment »

Doctor Who: The Well (Review)

Posted on April 26, 2025 by Darren

“There’s still hope.”

“Hope is irrelevant.”

The Well is a strange and triumphant exercise, a collection of contradictions that coheres remarkably well.

It is a chamber piece, a very basic Doctor Who story that could easily have been executed on the classic BBC budget, blown up with Disney+ money. It is a very obvious sequel to at least one beloved story from Davies’ original tenure as showrunner, and saturated with references to others, while still feeling undeniably like a produce of his second era overseeing the show. It is an exercise in nostalgia, but also a story about how that nostalgia is cursed. It is also Russell T. Davies revisiting his early work, while taking cues from Steven Moffat.

All’s well…

It shouldn’t work. The Well should collapse under its own weight. It should feel like an indulgent mess, a collection of clashing recycled imagery and iconography. However, The Well manages to strike a very careful balance between its competing priorities, allowing the individual elements to add up to more than the sum of its individual parts. It’s an episode that feels like an extension of Davies work in both The Robot Revolution and Lux, solidifying a rich thematic vein running through the first three stories of the season.

The Well is a remarkable accomplishment.

Spaced out…

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Filed under: Television | Tagged: alien, continuity, creature, disney, doctor who, hard sci-fi, hard science-fiction, memory, metaphor, Midnight, ncuti gatwa, nostalgia, russell t. davies, sequel, the doctor, the well, varada sethu | 2 Comments »

398. Alien: Resurrection – All-ien 2024 (#—)

Posted on November 9, 2024 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Jess Dunne, this week with special guests Diamanda Hagan, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This week, Jean-Pierre Jeunet’s Alien: Resurrection.

In the distant future, the terror of the xenomorph is nothing but a distant memory. The company has faded into history. However, on a ship at the extreme reaches of known space, the government is conducting cloning experiments in the hope of resurrecting Ellen Ripley. However, these scientists are much more interested in the creature she carries inside of her, which is now part of her DNA.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: alien, Alien Resurrection, blockbusters, body horror, diamanda hagan, drowning, Fox, franchise, horror, jess dunne, joss whedon, resurrection, sigourney weaver, water, wet, winona ryder | Leave a comment »

397. Alien³ – All-ien 2024 (#—)

Posted on November 2, 2024 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Jess Dunne, this week with special guest Alex Towers, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every second Saturday at 6pm GMT, with the occasional bonus episode between them.

This time, David Fincher’s Alien³.

A freak accident on her lifepod sends xenomorph survivor Ellen Ripley off-course. Plunging to the surface of a long-abandoned prison planet inhabited by the inmates so institutionalised that they refused to leave, Ripley finds herself haunted by the possibility that the monster that has taken so much from her is still with her, and that she is trapped inside of a prison of the creature’s making.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: alex towers, alien, alien 3, Alien³, all-ien, autuerism, david fincher, Fox, franchise, hollywood, imdb, jess dunne, Movie, podcast, The 250 | Leave a comment »

394. Predator – All-ien 2024 (#—)

Posted on October 5, 2024 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Jess Dunne, this week with special guests Joe Griffin and Alice Griffin, The 250 is a (mostly) weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released every Saturday at 6pm GMT.

This season, the podcast is taking a look at the Alien and Predator franchises. This time, John McTiernan’s Predator.

Major “Dutch” Schaeffer leads an elite squad of commandos on a rescue mission behind enemy lines in Central America. These American troops are crossing borders that they are not supposed to cross, and very quickly find themselves embroiled in a life-and-death struggle against a creature from far outside their frame of reference.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: alien, Arnold Schwarzenegger, colonialism, guns, jess dunne, joe griffin, John McTiernan, masculinity, podcast, predator, The 250, the predator, violence | Leave a comment »

388. Alien: Romulus (#—)

Posted on August 26, 2024 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn, Darren Mooney and Jess Dunne, this week with special guest Ethan Shattock, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

This week, Fede Álvarez’s Alien: Romulus.

On a backwater world, a group of young people make a desperate bid to escape the drudgery of their dreary lives. Identifying a seemingly abandoned corporate facility in orbit, the group decides to steal some equipment to help them journey to another system. Unfortunately, once they board the mysterious space station known only as “Romulus“, the gang discovers that they are not alone in the darkness.

At time of recording, it was not ranked on the list of the best television shows of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: This Just In | Tagged: alien, Darkness, Fede Alvarez, franchise, horror, imdb, jess dunne, light, Movie, nostalgia, podcast, slasher, space, The 250, violence, xenomorph | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Column! On How “Strange New Worlds” Offers “Star Trek” by Way of “Alien”…

Posted on June 30, 2022 by Darren

I published a new piece at The Escapist this evening. We’re doing a series of recaps and reviews of Star Trek: Strange New Worlds, which is streaming weekly on Paramount+. The ninth and penultimate episode of the first season released this week, and it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the series.

All Those Who Wander is an interesting genre experiment, effectively providing an intersection between Star Trek and Alien. It’s an interesting approach, and very much in keeping with how the franchise has approached other iconic works of science-fiction. However, it also demonstrates the limitations of the approach taken by Strange New Worlds, which seems frustratingly uninterested in what it means to juxtapose the humanism of the Star Trek franchise with the bleak nihilism of the Alien franchise.

You can read the piece here, or click the picture below.

Filed under: Star Trek | Tagged: alien, genre, gorn, science fiction, star trek, star trek: strange new worlds, strange new worlds | Leave a comment »

259. Alien – Halloween 2021 (#52)

Posted on October 30, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guests Doctor Bernice Murphy and Joey Keogh, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, a Halloween treat: Ridley Scott’s Alien.

A mysterious signal from deep space awakens the crew of the shipping vessel Nostromo. Following standing orders to respond, the crew find themselves drawn to a hostile and barren world. They track the signal to the wreckage of a strange and mysterious craft. However, there might just be something sinister stirring deep within that wreckage.

At time of recording, it was ranked 52nd on the list of the best movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The 250 | Tagged: alien, bernice murphy, body horror, capitalism, Dan O'Bannon, doctor bernice murphy, Ellen Ripley, femininity, gender, halloween, horrorm, joey keogh, ridley scott, signourney weaver, space, The 250, the monstrous feminine, Veronica Cartwright, xenomorph | Leave a comment »

256. Breach (Anti-Life) (-#69)

Posted on October 16, 2021 by Darren

Hosted by Andrew Quinn and Darren Mooney, and this week with special guest Joe Griffin, The 250 is a weekly trip through some of the best (and worst) movies ever made, as voted for by Internet Movie Database Users. New episodes are released Saturdays at 6pm GMT.

So this week, John Suits’ Breach.

Earth is dying. Mankind’s last hope lies in the stars. On board one of the last colony ships ferrying the handful of survivors to their new world, something inhuman is stirring. The vessel’s maintenance crew find themselves in a battle against an alien entity, with the fate of mankind in the balance.

At time of recording, it was ranked 69th on the list of the worst movies of all time on the Internet Movie Database.

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Filed under: The Bottom 100 | Tagged: action, advertisements, alien, anti-life, breach, bruce willis, celebrity, decline, Direct-to-video, fame, john suits, movie stars, science fiction, stardom, studio, system, the thing | Leave a comment »

New Escapist Video! On How “Aliens” Responds to “Alien”…

Posted on July 13, 2021 by Darren

So, as I have mentioned before, I am launching a new video series as a companion piece to In the Frame at The Escapist. The video will typically launch with every second Monday’s article, and be released on the magazine’s YouTube channel the following week. This is kinda cool, because we’re helping relaunch the magazine’s film content – so if you can throw a subscription our way, it would mean a lot.

This month, with Aliens celebrating its thirty-fifth anniversary, it seemed like a good opportunity to take a look at the film. In particular, how James Cameron designed one of the great sequels by refusing to simply repeat what worked about the original Alien. Instead, Aliens works in large part because it actively responds to and engages with Alien, in a way that enriches both films.