Movie Review

Ryan Reynolds and Deadpool team fail to blast off in outer space-set Life

When first we meet the characters in Life, they are already deep into the storyline that the film centers around. Located aboard the International Space Station, they are awaiting the return of a Mars probe that had been sent to collect rock samples and, perhaps, signs of life on the red planet.

Per the rules set up by Alien almost 40 years ago, the crew is a multicultural and multinational one. It includes Roy and David (Ryan Reynolds and Jake Gyllenhaal), the two Americans; Miranda and Hugh (Rebecca Ferguson and Ariyon Bakare), two Brits; mission leader Kat (Olga Dihovichnaya), a Russian; and Sho (Hiroyuki Sanada), who’s Japanese.

Hugh, a biologist, tries to coax a proto-life form into the world of the living. What at first seems fascinating soon turns terrifying as the creature grows rapidly and becomes deadly. The crew must try to contain the alien not just for the sake of their own survival, but so that it doesn’t find its way to Earth.

Director Daniel Espinosa and his crew set the scene very effectively. With the film takes place entirely onboard the ISS, the characters are required to be in zero gravity the entire time, a notoriously hard thing to portray. But Espinosa uses a combination of visual effects and camera trickery that makes for a seamless visual experience.

Written by Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick, the same duo who wrote Reynolds’ Deadpool, the film is heavy on jokes from Reynolds and scares in general, but relatively light in the logic department. One minute, the group is following every protocol they have down to the letter; the next, they’re throwing all caution to the wind, even if it means giving the alien a chance to escape.

And then there are the rules they set up for the alien itself, or rather, the lack of them. What makes the creature so terrifying, aside from its bloodlust, is its ability to adapt to different conditions. Yet, as it makes its way around the space station, the remaining crew members keep trying to kill it by certain methods even though it has already proven that those methods are useless.

Despite the lack of setup in the film, the actors do a great job of establishing their characters. Especially notable are Ferguson, Bakare, and Sanada, who each bring a sensitivity to their roles that make you root extra hard for them. Reynolds could’ve stood to be reined in some more, but Gyllenhaal delivers his usual good performance.

Thanks to a few too many flaws, Life will likely not find the extended movie life of the predecessors to which it owes a huge debt. But it offers up enough genuine thrills and chills in its brief 103 minutes to make for a passable time at the movies.

Ryan Reynolds in Life.

Ryan Reynolds in Life

Photo courtesy of Sony Pictures

Ryan Reynolds in Life.

Vinyl Record News

Dallas record store chain Josey Records spins new location in Garland

Josey Records

Josey Records

Vinyl at Josey Records

Dallas music maker Josey Records has extended its reach east: The record store chain, whose empire includes one of the largest single independent record stores in the U.S., has opened a location in Garland, at 1005 Northwest Hwy., at the intersection of Centerville Road, where it's selling its trademark assortment of vinyl records, CDs, cassettes, turntables, music posters, new releases, and music accessories.

This is the sixth location and the third in the Dallas area, joining the original in Farmers Branch which owners Waric Cameron and Luke Sardello opened in November 2014. They've since opened locations in Plano, Tulsa, Kansas City, and Vidalia, Missouri.

The original location is a giant place with 16,000 square feet devoted to vinyl, 45s, CDs, turntables, and T-shirts. They do a good job showcasing new releases and collector vinyl — they made CultureMap's list of 5 best places in Dallas to buy vinyl records — and are known to host album release and listening parties such as a recent blockbuster celebrating Linkin Park.

They made headlines in June 2020 when they acquired the vast musical inventory of Bill’s Records following the death of owner Bill Wisener; Cameron and Sardello both worked at Bill’s, and knew the sprawling collection first-hand.

"It has taken us years to even start going through it, but in last two years, we've made some headway," Cameron says. "Bill's has its own audience, so we created a specific Instagram account, just for Bill's Records merchandise called @billsrecordsvault."

They chose Garland because they saw it as an area that was under-served.

"There are very few record stores in that area of northeast Dallas, Casa View, Garland, Rockwall, Mesquite," Cameron says. "We have customers who live over there, so it seemed like a good place for a store."

The storefront they're in was most recently The Music Store, which sold and rented musical instruments and accessories; but coincidentally, it's next to an address that was once RPM Records, a hip record store from the '90s.

The Garland store follows the same model as their others: selling new and used records and merchandise, and buying used goods, as well.

"One thing that's cool is that each location takes on its own identity," he says. "We buy used CDs, vinyl records, cassettes — we're a used resale business — and what we buy from our customers dictates what that store becomes. For example, our Plano store has a lot of classic rock. So we're looking forward to seeing what Garland gravitates to."

Garland does have one thing that the other locations do not.

"Right now, Garland has this incredible collection of jazz," Cameron says. "We bought a great collection of jazz records — someone called and wanted to sell it. We get that a lot, we buy major collections from all over the U.S., we even make house calls. So we saved it for the Garland store."

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