I watched the MST3K version, but if I saw the full version on DVD or video for £7 or less, i'd definitely buy it. That price isn't a reflection on the quality of the movie either, I just don't like buying movies much.
Alien from L.A. is watchable in two ways. I thought the design of the production was, for the most part, excellent. I liked the cramped, fuzzy-smoky-steamy atmosphere and lighting, and I liked the costumes. I'm a sucker for "futuristic" dystopias, and one set of villains looked like Fat Sam's gang from Bugsy Malone grown up and glammed up. I like Bugsy, I like glam. I also like Flash Gordon and Dune, and the governmental bad guys(though some of them weren't..) would've fitted right into either. The world design of "Atlantis" made me happy.
The second reason I couldn't look away from this movie was that I just couldn't *believe* Wanda (the main character). She starts the movie as such an unbelievable drip and the way she reacts to the letter that tells her her father is dead.. a mildly interested "O my gaahd~". NO KATHY IRELAND, THAT IS NOT HOW.
Other people have mentioned her lack of sensible character development, but not the fact that when her glasses get smashed, she looks around for them from a distance, seems to SEE them, and shrug it off never needing them again. Maybe she's long sighted I guess, but that's never suggested by the movie.
It is also not a good move to use an actress with a voice like that. Coupled with her bizarre reactionless acting it makes Wanda seem a complete space case and fairly impossible to sympathise with (as well as confusingly young before close-ups), and if you feel the need to hang a lampshade on a personal quirk three times in a film then you should just take the damn thing out somehow.
Having said that though, if you took Wanda's weirdness and lack of expectable human qualities out of Alien From L.A, you'd have to replace it with something really amazing. The confusion that her character causes in the watcher is compelling. You might call it car- crash-watchable, but I think it's something rarer. There's almost no substance to the part at all, though she does things and goes places, changes clothes and follows a plot of a sort. It's like watching tightrope walkers; you think to yourself "can that really be happening?"-- but it is.
Watching Alien From L.A. felt like watching a lot of other movies I've seen all at once. It reminded me of Tank Girl and The City of Lost Children and Garuda and The Worst Witch (the one with Tim Curry), Total Recall, 1984, there are these cool, kinda noir-y bits..
This movie basically confuses me on a base level. The main character, performance and story are not good; perhaps just the average for some romantic/empowering made-for-TV. But they somehow found their way into another movie. A movie we never see the characters or plot of, a movie which takes place in an 80s-future city state that's averaged out from various previously existing sci-fi but which nevertheless carries it, adds a little of its own zing, and ends up workin' for me. Maybe that movie is about Gus's girl, or why the city is run by a revolving man, or why anybody listens to that guy on all the TVs, or why everybody is so interested in bones.
I just really want someone to make that other movie. I really, really do. But until then, I am satisfied with Alien From L.A.
Alien from L.A. is watchable in two ways. I thought the design of the production was, for the most part, excellent. I liked the cramped, fuzzy-smoky-steamy atmosphere and lighting, and I liked the costumes. I'm a sucker for "futuristic" dystopias, and one set of villains looked like Fat Sam's gang from Bugsy Malone grown up and glammed up. I like Bugsy, I like glam. I also like Flash Gordon and Dune, and the governmental bad guys(though some of them weren't..) would've fitted right into either. The world design of "Atlantis" made me happy.
The second reason I couldn't look away from this movie was that I just couldn't *believe* Wanda (the main character). She starts the movie as such an unbelievable drip and the way she reacts to the letter that tells her her father is dead.. a mildly interested "O my gaahd~". NO KATHY IRELAND, THAT IS NOT HOW.
Other people have mentioned her lack of sensible character development, but not the fact that when her glasses get smashed, she looks around for them from a distance, seems to SEE them, and shrug it off never needing them again. Maybe she's long sighted I guess, but that's never suggested by the movie.
It is also not a good move to use an actress with a voice like that. Coupled with her bizarre reactionless acting it makes Wanda seem a complete space case and fairly impossible to sympathise with (as well as confusingly young before close-ups), and if you feel the need to hang a lampshade on a personal quirk three times in a film then you should just take the damn thing out somehow.
Having said that though, if you took Wanda's weirdness and lack of expectable human qualities out of Alien From L.A, you'd have to replace it with something really amazing. The confusion that her character causes in the watcher is compelling. You might call it car- crash-watchable, but I think it's something rarer. There's almost no substance to the part at all, though she does things and goes places, changes clothes and follows a plot of a sort. It's like watching tightrope walkers; you think to yourself "can that really be happening?"-- but it is.
Watching Alien From L.A. felt like watching a lot of other movies I've seen all at once. It reminded me of Tank Girl and The City of Lost Children and Garuda and The Worst Witch (the one with Tim Curry), Total Recall, 1984, there are these cool, kinda noir-y bits..
This movie basically confuses me on a base level. The main character, performance and story are not good; perhaps just the average for some romantic/empowering made-for-TV. But they somehow found their way into another movie. A movie we never see the characters or plot of, a movie which takes place in an 80s-future city state that's averaged out from various previously existing sci-fi but which nevertheless carries it, adds a little of its own zing, and ends up workin' for me. Maybe that movie is about Gus's girl, or why the city is run by a revolving man, or why anybody listens to that guy on all the TVs, or why everybody is so interested in bones.
I just really want someone to make that other movie. I really, really do. But until then, I am satisfied with Alien From L.A.