I truly don’t know why it took so long for someone to bring Alien onto Someone Else’s Movie. We’ve had episodes on Aliens and Alien 3, and there were a couple of times I came close to having to tackle Alien Vs. Predator, but in nine and a half years, no one ever picked the original … until now.

Conor Sweeney, a member of the Astron-6 collective and the star of Steven Kostanski’s retro fantasy comedy Frankie Freako — which opens across Canada this Friday, and is a ridiculous amount of fun — finally chose Ridley Scott’s genre-defining 1979 masterpiece, and we had a really great time talking about it, the franchise it spawned, our mutual loathing of Scott’s dopey prequels and a few other things. You should give it a listen.

So, you know, do that! You can subscribe at all the usual spots — Apple, Spotify, YouTube Podcasts —or download the episode directly from the web and listen to it as you argue with your ship’s computer about decoded distress signals and distressing corporate priorities.

And then you should catch up on Shiny Things, because I’ve been busy! Last week I launched a new recommendations column for paying subscribers, and I covered Via Vision’s lovely double feature of Paul Auster and Wayne Wang’s Smoke and Blue in the Face, as well as some very weird new releases from Severin Films. Not subscribed yet? Just click here and I’ll get you set up.