I watched James Cameron's "Aliens" last night. It must Cameron's best film. This comes from someone who thinks Cameron is a severely overestimated director. The first "Terminator" is snappy, but the second one is ponderous and there's too much posing before camera. "Titanic" is overblown and at times pretty stupid. "True Lies" can be watched as postmodern parody, but I fail to notice it. And it's wildly racist and xenophobic. (As for "Abyss", I haven't seen it since it was new.) Did I forget something?
Cameron also wrote "Rambo", but you can pretty much guess that I don't care for the film and its hateful depiction of the Vietnamese soldiers. And Stallone is no actor. Just check his final monologue. (I know some people always say he's intelligent and a great guy. After all, he wrote the novelization of "Rocky II" himself! And he did write "Paradise Alley" and it was filmed only after it was published in hardback. (Maybe I should check these out. I'm going by memory.))
"Aliens", however, is exciting, intriguing and at times even touching. It's fast-moving and there's not too much posing as is the case with "T2". The tone is a bit militaristic and there's gun fetishism, but I don't mind.
Yet I don't give much credit to those who think "Aliens" is a deep film with many layers and meanings and comments about femalehood, motherhood and feminity and the power of patriachality. (Is that the right word?) I can see the parts where this discussion is relevant, but I don't see them in any other Cameron films, so they may be unintentional. After all, the tough female hero wasn't Cameron's idea (or Walter Hill's, who wrote the original story) as Ripley was very tough already in Ridley Scott's original film (which is, by the way, wildly better than Cameron's).
The Finnish TV will also show David Fincher's "Alien 3". I remember thinking it was an original and well-made film. Will see. Jean-Pierre Jeunet's "Alien Resurrection" was a disappointment, even though there were some chilling scenes. I remember especially the one in which the aliens swim under water! (And I haven't seen "Alien vs. Predator", as I wrote earlier.)
There were of course novelizations of the Alien films. Alan Dean Foster wrote the first three ones and the Jeunet film was novelized by Ann Crispin, whoever she is, from Joss Whedon's script. There was also "the official juvenile novelization" by Terry Bisson. Huh? I thought that these were no kiddies' movies. Marc Cerasini has written the Alien vs. Predator tie-in. Once again: who he? (Well, I checked. He seems to have written other tie-ins, too, including books about Ace Ventura and Jimmy Neutron Boy!)
One more comment. My dad who was once a movie critic didn't go to see the first Alien, because he thought it was just another space flick for which he didn't much care for. He saw it later and was blown out. He said that it's the best horror film he has ever seen.
Oh, one comment more. Or, rather, a memory. Some ten years back (how years go by!) I was the president of a movie club called Monroe in Tampere where I studied. We held a special Alien night with all the three movies. The show was a success and we sold more tickets than the theater allowed. Some guys sat on wooden chairs all night in side of the theater! As a surprise, we showed a Disney cartoon before "Alien 3" and it got crazy applaudes. I think it was "Donald's Better Self". We got it from the church - they had movies to rent at the time. (I phoned there some months ago and asked if they still had the service. The man in the phone said he'd never heard of such thing. They had a wonderful list of Disney shorts, one Norman McLaren and some other animations, with the rest being of course educational church films. Too bad this kind of thing wouldn't succeed anymore. The film distributors don't keep old films in stock anymore, which is a great shame!)
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7 comments:
Rambo as in Rambo: First Blood part II? Or as my mind it always translates: Rambo II. Agreement here with the verdict of yours.
The same goes with Aliens. Sequels have a right to be called whatever they're called, but my sadly unorganised little mind more often than not just adds a number to the original and quietly forgets the real title.
As to those Alien-movie tie-ins: Ann Crispin is a fairly known American Star Trek authors, whose real claim to fame in my book is her passionate work for the Science Fiction Writers of America, with which she has done tremendously important job in informing newbie writers in the dangerous world of publishing. As you more than well know, vanity publishing, while sometimes good and admirable option, is riddled with crooks and grifters and swindlers of some real lowdown caliber. I met her in Philadeplhia Worldcon in 2001 and she seemed like a very gracious and concerned lady, who really wanted to advice the new writers with her more than appropriate motto (could be originally someone else's): "Money flows toward the author" as in, you're not supposed to pay to the publisher.
As to Terry Bisson. Now, he is by far the best writer of these three (as in Crispin, Bisson and Foster) though I like ADF a great deal (I met him in 2002 and had a delightful conversation with the man; he was the GoH of Lunacon in Rye, NY). Bisson is a respected sf/f-author, who has co-written the "sequel" to Walter M. Miller's legendary A Can to Kill Four Leiber Wits (or as traditionally it's known: A Canticle for Leibowitz - Viimeinen kiitoshymni in Finnish) called St. Leibowitz and the Wild Horse Woman after Miller died and left an unfinished manuscript behind. Bisson has written a number of great stories of his own, me favourites have been the novel Talking Man - a neat on-the-road contemporary fantasy - and the short story collection Bears Discover Fire.
Bisson's own bibliography has this to say about the Alien-novelization: Alien Resurrection (HarperPrism, 1997) Digest novelization of a screenplay by Joss Whedon; his name and mine both removed by contract. He seems to have done also Fifth Element and Galaxy Quest.
Thanks again for your comments. And yes, I meant "Rambo II".
And my "Huh?" regarding Terry Bisson meant the "juvenile" issue. I wouldn't've thought that there could be juvenile novelizations of the Alien movies.
Thanks again for your comments. And yes, I meant "Rambo II".
And my "Huh?" regarding Terry Bisson meant the "juvenile" issue. I wouldn't've thought that there could be juvenile novelizations of the Alien movies.
Thanks again for your comments. And yes, I meant "Rambo II".
And my "Huh?" regarding Terry Bisson meant the "juvenile" issue. I wouldn't've thought that there could be juvenile novelizations of the Alien movies.
Thanks again for your comments. And yes, I meant "Rambo II".
And my "Huh?" regarding Terry Bisson meant the "juvenile" issue. I wouldn't've thought that there could be juvenile novelizations of the Alien movies.
Thanks again for your comments. And yes, I meant "Rambo II".
And my "Huh?" regarding Terry Bisson meant the "juvenile" issue. I wouldn't've thought that there could be juvenile novelizations of the Alien movies.
Thanks again for your comments. And yes, I meant "Rambo II".
And my "Huh?" regarding Terry Bisson meant the "juvenile" issue. I wouldn't've thought that there could be juvenile novelizations of the Alien movies.
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