David L.
Ben Franklin: "Only a virtuous people are capable of freedom. As nations become corrupt, they have more need of masters."
-----Original Message-----
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]On Behalf Of Jen --
Sent: Wednesday, October 29, 2003 7:30 AM
To: 'The Sandbox Discussion List'
Subject: [Sndbox] Alien: The Directors Cut
October 29, 2003 -- JUST in time for Halloween, we have a genuinely scary movie - "Alien: The Director's Cut," Ridley Scott's light reworking of his classic 1979 outer-space thriller that made Sigourney Weaver a star, and inspired three sequels and countless imitators.
This new, spiffed-up version incorporates seven previously deleted scenes - mostly available as supplements on earlier DVDs - including a first glimpse of the alien, hanging above Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) as he looks for Jonesy the cat.
Another interesting and chilling inclusion is a scene in which Ripley (Weaver) stumbles upon the captain, Dallas (Tom Skeritt), who's been "cocooned" by the shape-shifting alien.
But mostly it's worth seeing "Alien," which established Scott as an A-list director, in a theater because his brilliant and often expansive visuals have always worked better on a big screen than on video.
The relatively spare and thoughtful "Alien" has long been overshadowed by the greater popularity of its first sequel, James Cameron's "Aliens," which is packed with action.
Though Scott has clipped six minutes of footage from the original "Alien" to make room for the new footage and to pick up the pace, it's still pretty leisurely by contemporary standards.
There isn't a single shock for the movie's first 45 minutes, which are mostly devoted to establishing a mood of dread and introducing the characters - seven members of a weary futuristic interplanetary cargo carrier, reluctantly responding to a distress call on a distant planet.
Besides Weaver and Skeritt, the top-notch ensemble includes two of Britain's best actors - Ian Holm, as the untrustworthy science officer, and John Hurt, who set a new standard in screen gore when the phallic alien burst out of his chest.
Dan O'Bannon's screenplay is basically an intelligent recycling of a '50s B-movie, "It! The Terror From Beyond Space," that swept away many clichés of the genre (there's no romantic subplot, for one) - while creating a terror template that introduced what eventually became a whole new set of clichés.
But seldom has it been done so well.
It's hard to forget the sequence of the alien's acidic blood eating its way through one deck of the ship after the other, or Ripley's final face-off with the alien in her skivvies.
Equally memorable is Ripley's outrage when she learns she's been set up by her employers - if Scott gives it texture, Weaver (in her first major role) gives "Alien" an edge you won't find in "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre" and its ilk.
ALIEN: THE DIRECTOR'S CUT
One classy and cerebral horror movie.Running time: 119 minutes. Rated R (violence, gore). At the E-Walk, the Union Square, the Kips Bay, others.
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