Word: alien
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...some surprising heroics for the audience to cheer. The other outsider is a different case. Burke (Paul Reiser) is a junior executive in "the company," the monopoly that has all of space to profit from. He has absorbed its corporate culture all too well. In Alien, of course, company leaders, without warning employees of the danger, callously ordered them to bring an alien back alive, hoping it could be domesticated for use in the weapons division. Now Burke, who has the insinuating manner of an inside trader, is trying to do the same thing, but merely to advance his sleazy...
Ripley's bonding with Newt is inevitable, as Hurd says, "because they were both survivors of their own particular group's encounter with extraterrestrial species. They knew what they were up against, and the others didn't. In Alien, people had to fight or die. Now Ripley could save herself but chooses to fight to save Newt." It is, in part, the unexpectedness and depth of her feelings that give the film its propulsive power, fueling the final hour to at least two more heart-stopper endings than the average thriller...
...Frontline decided to add "wraparounds" to discuss concerns about propaganda. (Usually when the subject is Communism, a prudent station operator wants at least one panelist who will argue that Gorbachev is no better than a smiling Genghis Khan.) Which raises another question: Is the American public so susceptible to alien wiles that it cannot stand any direct exposure to reality that does not come carefully wrapped in ideological cautions...
...Weaver's Ripley. May homeless children have no less ferocious an adoptive mother; may extraterrestrial predators meet no less resourceful an antagonist. Trust that a million moviegoers will find the glamour beneath the smudged sweat on Ripley's face, and the feral humor in her challenge to Big Mama Alien: "Get away from her, you bitch...
...Alien and its new sequel, Weaver has been able to commandeer center screen with a character she larkishly calls "Rambolina." Beneath the armor, though, she has found exotic soulmates: "I secretly structured myself to play Ripley like Henry V and like the women warriors of classic Chinese literature." Aliens was no take-the-money-and-run proposition (though she was paid $1 million, about 30 times her salary for the 1979 original). As Cameron remarks, "She's intensely prepared. Her copy of the script was marked with 17 different colors of ink. The margin notes were incredible...