Gut-busting Good

Two down, ninety-eight to go.

#2: Alien




















Part of the impetus for the whole hundred movie endeavor is that I've realized for as many movies as I've seen there are a lot of classics I've missed. Maybe instead of seeing The Dark Knight seven times in theaters I should have tried my hand at expending my horizons.

I've always heard that Alien was a groundbreaking Sci-Fi film worthy of every bit of the hype it has received. I can see why people would say this. You would never know this movie was made in 1979. The set, the special effects, and the concept were prototypical. But even beyond it's success within its context, the movie is just beautifully done.

A lot of people are inclined to point to CGI as evidence for how far we've come cinematically. I don't know how others feel about this, but for as many CGI successes as there have been in recent films there have been as many abject failures. The recent Wolverine movie (which I will be writing about soon) is the perfect example. The CGI claws and whatever CGI was applied to Patrick Stewart's face were unbearably bad. For those of you unfortunate enough to see the sequel to The Ring, the infamous CGI deer scene had the audience in stitches. So its shortcomings are apparent.

Alien achieves impressive effects for its time through basic cinematic tricks: distance, lighting, duration of shots, etc. The actual alien, though crude by our standards, is pretty damn creepy looking for something made--count it--thirty years ago. I loved all of the props and set pieces.

The movie itself was equally impressive. Sigourney Weaver's performance was sincere. The last scene, especially, gives off a very real sense of suspence where movies now settle for shock scares. Of course I'd only rented this movie so the majority of that scene was pausing and then jumping forward a few seconds, but its essence was preserved. Tenseness during exchanges between shipmates as tempers mounted was tangible. This is the type of movie that gets me excited to have 98 more ahead of me.

Sci-fi movies currently have a stigma attached to them. Admittedly a lot of the Sci-Fi movies that come out now are a little alienating (get it?)--either so fast-paced and action packed and Vin Diesel starred that true Sci-Fi fans aren't interested, or so stereotypically daunting in terms of content that only true fans are willing to watch. Alien seems accessible, which is probably just one element that contributed to its success.