Today I decided that it was time to finally get to watching American Beauty. The 1999 film won the Oscar for best picture, and is fiercely debated up to today, 20 years later. Some call it a classic, some going so far as to label it one of the worst movies ever made.
It’s kind of both.
There are moments, moments of phenomenal acting or filmmaking, that elevate it to the status of a truly great film (see Kevin Spacey’s delivery of “I rule”, which is one of my favorite movie moments ever and which I will be referring to multiple times). And there are moments, like oh I don’t know EVERY FREAKING SCENE WITH WES BENTLEY’S ATROCIOUS CHARACTER, that are war crimes and ruin the film. So what I’m trying to say is that my feelings on American Beauty, a couple hours removed from my first watch, are complicated. I’ve more or less settled (for now) on the idea that it’s equal parts masterwork and dumpster fire. So let’s get into why.
I’ll start with the good: the acting is among the best ever (save for Peter Gallagher and Thora Birch, who does have some good moments. Wes Bentley doesn’t turn in a bad performance, it’s just that the character makes me want to hurt something). Spacey (setting aside the fact that he’s an awful person who deserves what he’s getting) is amazing in this film, and deserving of his Oscar. His scenes are darkly comic and his acting is spellbinding (the line deliveries on “I Rule” and “Don’t interrupt me” are amazing). Maybe even better is Annette Bening, who was robbed of the Oscar. Chris Cooper, even though he’s playing Every Chris Cooper Character, nails it and steals all of his scenes as an abominable homophobic possible-nazi. The scenes concentrated around these characters are brilliant and eminently entertaining and thought provoking.
Which brings me to the bad. Some scenes, and there’s no better way to put this, SUCK. The plastic bag scene? GARBAGE. The scene where Cooper erroneously thinks his son is sexually involved with Spacey’s character (aged super poorly, by the way) due to a poorly-placed wall? STUPID AS HELL. COMICALLY DUMB. “Why did you film the frozen hobo? Because it was beautiful” OH MY GOD SHOOT ME IN THE FACE. This is a case of a film that thinks it’s super smart but isn’t (some took issue with Vice last year for the same thing, but that one actually is smart). It’s in these moments when it feels like Crash, which (unlike American Beauty) is wholly awful and has no redeeming qualities (OK, one: Matt Dillon is pretty great). Again, the Wes Bentley character is a pestilence.
So that leaves the ugly. Which, of course, is the movie’s treatment of its characters. It’s a great film when it seems like it doesn’t condone the actions of Spacey’s or Bentley’s characters. These are, like every other character, reprehensible, awful people. If the movie had realized this and depicted them as such, then there would be few to no issues. But it didn’t, so it ends up a deeply flawed movie that also happens to be really good. The ending seems to serve as redemption, of sorts, for Spacey’s character, or at least it establishes him as a good person. And this is where it lost me. Up to that point, you could subscribe to the interpretation that it’s presenting its characters as the despicable people they are. But it diverts from this and presents Spacey’s character as a hero, glamorizing the awful things he does for the vast majority of the runtime. This is without even mentioning the ugliest part, which is the Lolita-esque plot that feels as though it’s painting Mena Suvari’s character as equally, if not more, responsible. Also, Bentley doesn’t get excused for being a massive creep and total sociopath just because Chris Cooper’s character is far worse. Like I said, deeply flawed.
So American Beauty is difficult. I wanted to love it, and there’s so much of it to love, but there’s also way too much that dwarves that and makes it hard to view at as truly great. It ends up falling in the middle, getting a rating that’s pretty much average. Except it’s anything but. It’s thoroughly bipolar, with every scene being either great or painfully bad. The message it’s trying to get across is heavy-handed and feels wrong. Its morals are hard to get past, and it does feel somewhat dated. But there are spots of brilliance and mastery (I need to say this again: the plastic bag scene isn’t one of these). There are spots that feel like they’re taken from a masterwork, and they kind of are. Yet they’re also from a garbage movie. It’s still not super clear to me. Maybe it will be at some point. I don’t know. Whatever. I just love the “I rule” scene.
In honor of Mother’s day coming up in a few days, I’ve decided to write about some of the most touching mother-child stories in cinematic history: Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho and Notorious, the original The Manchurian Candidate and Friday the 13th, and Brian de Palma’s Carrie.
By now, you have realized that the word “touching” is inaccurate. So rather, stay put for some of the most… let’s say interesting mothers in film history. (Spoilers ahead for all those mentioned above, but I mean come on, if you haven’t seen at least Psycho, if not all of those, by this point, then what are you doing?)
The Manchurian Candidate (1962)
In a performance that should’ve won her an oscar (although nominated, she lost to Patty Duke in The Miracle Worker), Angela Lansbury portrays the mother of Korean War hero Raymond Shaw, a woman obsessed with only one thing: power. She marries a senator (reminiscent of Joseph McCarthy) and acts as a sort of twisted puppeteer behind his rise to power through fear. To this end, she brainwashes her son to carry out an assassination for political purposes. Shaw, upon having this plot revealed to him (by none other than Frank Sinatra), takes the somewhat extreme (although reasonable, due to the events of the film) step of killing his mother and the senator, before he kills himself. It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that a mother who drives her son to this ins’t exactly the best. And again, Lansbury is completely fantastic.
Psycho (1960) & Notorious (1946)
As one could discern from pretty much any of his films, Alfred Hitchcock had kind of a rough relationship with mothers. In his films, the mother is almost always an antagonistic character, which is a product of his complicated relationship with his own mother. The two most prominent examples of this are in his landmark Psycho and his classic Notorious.
In Notorious, Austrian silent film star Leopoldine Konstantin plays the scheming mother of Claude Rains (in his best performance after Casablanca), a nazi war criminal hiding out in Brazil. When Ingrid Bergman’s Alicia Huberman gets married to Rains as part of a government operation and Rains finds out, his mother suggests poisoning Bergman’s character. While the main conflict of the movie is Huberman’s twisted relationship with Cary Grant, the climax of the film (and second most intense scene after the scene in the wine cellar) features Rains carrying out his mother’s plan and poisoning Alicia. She suffers throughout the remainder of the film before Grant’s character comes to rescue her. The conclusion of Notorious brings the film full circle in something of a typical, twisted, Hitchcockian romantic way. Yet the cause of the action that brings the film to its end it spurred on by the mother. This cements Hitchcock’s distaste for mothers in Notorious, and in doing so pushes the film over the finish line and creates one of his greatest accomplishments.
In Psycho, obviously, the mother/son relationship is a little different than most other movies. Norman Bates’s relationship with his mother is… intimate. In fact, a lot of the reason that Psycho works as well as it does, which is to say about as well as anything does, is because of the dynamic created by the hidden (or, as it turns out, not hidden) antagonist throughout the majority of the movie. The “mother” is responsible for some of the greatest moments in the whole movie, such as the brilliant ending monologue (she wouldn’t even harm a fly), the reveal of the real mother (one of the most frightening moments in the whole film), the murder of Milton Arbogast (the single most terrifying moment in the whole film and an absolute masterwork of direction) and of course, the shower scene (I don’t think I have to give any explanation here). While Anthony Perkins turns in a great performance as Norman Bates and Janet Leigh is exceptional as Marion Crane (well, while she’s alive), it could be argued that the mother steals the film and makes it what it is, and that’s a testament to Hitchcock’s skill as a director.
Friday The 13th (1980)
Speaking of villainous horror movie mothers who spend most of the film in the shadows (wow, that’s a niche category), you really can’t beat Mrs. Voorhees in the original Friday the 13th. Before I begin here, full disclosure: I’m not a fan of this movie. It has some redeeming qualities (holy crap, is that Kevin Bacon?), and is no way a failure, it spends most of its runtime trying to be Halloween. However, one of those redeeming qualities is the twist that the killer is not Jason, but in fact his mother. Sure, some of the impact is lessened by the fact that it’s an incredibly well-known twist, yet it’s a brilliant subversion of horror movie tropes. The effectiveness of the twist is due in large part to how unbelievably creepy Betsy Palmer is in the role. The movie ramps up the intensity at an incredible level the moment she is revealed to be the killer, and it does a very good job of keeping the intensity up until the final jump scare (a final jump scare that manages to be scarier than anything else in the movie, another niche category. More on that in a second). The character of Mrs. Voorhees does an excellent job of elevating the film, which speaks to the quality of the character.
Carrie (1976)
The scariest part of Brian de Palma’s classic Carrie is of course that final jump scare, but Piper Laurie’s character comes pretty close. Laurie plays the titular character’s fundamentalist Christian mother, a psychotic being of pure evil whose only purpose is to make Carrie’s life somehow even worse than her classmates try to make it. Margaret White manages to be perhaps the single most evil screen mother in a couple of ways. The first is that Laurie turns in an all-time performance. She was nominated for the Oscar for best supporting actress, but lost to Beatrice Straight in Network (which, I mean, I love Network a lot, but come on, she’s in one scene). Although Sissy Spacek turns in another legendary performance as the eponymous protagonist, Laurie steals every scene she’s in. The second reason that the character is so terrifying is simply the painfully sad irony of her: Carrie’s life is miserable, and the person who should be there for her to lean on is so awful to her that, when she’s just had the worst experience of her life (understatement), she exacerbates the situation by literally trying to kill her daughter. The previously mentioned mothers on this list are terrible, but nobody actually went that far.
I close with the absolute worst mother in film history. I am talking, of course, about Nancy’s mom in the original A Nightmare on Elm Street. I can’t even bring myself to write an entire paragraph about her. All the adults in that movie are idiots and watching them ruin the lives of their children is a special kind of torment, but she stands alone. Ok, quick tangent for a second: she KNOWS that Krueger is out there and she KNOWS what he intends to do, yet not only does she not believe her daughter, SHE INTENTIONALLY PREVENTS HER FROM TRYING TO SAVE HER OWN LIFE. SHE WANTS HER TO DIE. SHE’S FAR WORSE THAN FREDDY KRUEGER. So in conclusion, happy mother’s day, and screw you, the mom from Nightmare on Elm Street.
His films are brutally violent and insanely profane. His influences are mainly films that the average person has never heard of, and he borrows from every last one of them. His dialogue-driven films stand out in an era when box office titans are comprised of explosions and chase scenes (although Tarantino can do that well, too). A major component of his body of work is including songs that nobody’s ever heard of. He shouldn’t have any sort of mass following.
Yet he does. He’s one of the only auteur directors that still drives people to the theater in droves. And with good reason. His films are flashy and alluring, he attracts major talent (Samuel L. Jackson, Brad Pitt, Leonardo DiCaprio, etc.), and he’s just a straight-up cinematic genius. All of the aforementioned songs nobody has heard never of immediately become super popular. Individual moments, lines, and images from his filmography have become imbedded into popular culture. He deserves his fame simply because he’s just that good. He’s so good, in fact, that he’s never made a bad film. And that is where we begin in this ranking of all 9 Quentin Tarantino films. (Only counting directed films, so no True Romance or From Dusk Till Dawn. Kill Bill counts as one film. Spoilers ahead).
9- The Hateful Eight
Again, there’s no bad Tarantino film. There’s a bad half of one, however. The first half of The Hateful Eight serves one purpose, and it’s to get all of its characters into one place. That’s it. That’s half of a close to three hour movie. Now, that’s not to say that the first half is a total failure. It looks fantastic, and it’s incredibly well acted, especially on behalf of Samuel L Jackson, Kurt Russell, Jennifer Jason Leigh, and Bruce Dern. The reason that the movie itself isn’t bad is the second half. From the halfway point on, The Hateful Eight is so great that you almost forget how slow the first half is. Characters die at an alarming rate and every death comes out of nowhere. The tension built up in the first half pays off big time as everything comes to a head in a masterwork of tension. Most importantly, it’s an essentially Tarantinoesque film. It’s very dialogue driven and features almost all of his recurring actors, such as Jackson, Michael Madsen, Tim Roth, and Zoe Bell, among others. And Ennio freakin’ Morricone did the score! But still, something had to be last.
8- Death Proof
It is perhaps my most unpopular opinion on Tarantino’s films that Death Proof is actually really good. It’s especially good for what it is, which is an intentionally cheap and sleazy tribute to the grindhouse movies of the seventies. And it works absolutely perfectly as that. It’s sleazy as hell and twice as gritty. It’s brutally violent and super cheap (which, again, is by design). It all comes together perfectly as a brilliant storm of pure cinematic bliss. The key to the whole thing, however, is Kurt Russell in one of his career best performances. His psychotic Stuntman Mike is one of the greatest villains in the Tarantino canon, and he’s the reason that what otherwise wouldn’t work works. It’s one of the greatest performances in all of Tarantino’s movies, and it’s so much fun (but also really guilt-inspiring) to watch him exact works of sheer evil and psychosis spanning both parts of the movie, the only thing tying both acts together. Both car scenes are masterful. The first, at the conclusion of the first half, is a brilliant scene, combining Tarantinoesque tension and elements of slasher horror to create something so brutal yet so utterly fantastic. The second, the climactic chase scene that runs for pretty much the entire fourth quarter of the film, is a work of pure technical precision. Tarantino directs the chase masterfully, and it’s fun to see him work outside of his typical comfort zone in trying (and succeeding) to craft an action sequence. Death Proof is not without its shortcomings, though. The third quarter of the film is just kinda nothing, and the premise really limits what it can be by design. Not a masterpiece, but it’s truly great and likely his most underrated film.
7- Jackie Brown
Tarantino’s films are their own genre, but yet they all seem to pay tribute to others. Reservoir Dogs is a heist movie, Pulp Fiction is an homage to the titular works, Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight are westerns, Inglourious Basterds is a war movie, Kill Bill is like 19 different ones and Death Proof is a grindhouse film. Jackie Brown is Tarantino’s contribution to the early-70s blaxploitation genre, even going so far as to cast the biggest star of the movement in the title role. Pam Grier is phenomenal, but Jackie Brown (the film) is complicated enough that she’s not really the main character. Samuel L Jackson’s charismatic gun nut Ordell Robbie steals the show, Robert DeNiro’s (!) depraved, burnt-out Louis and Bridget Fonda’s sardonic Melanie play major roles, and Michael Keaton’s agent Ray Nicolette is… there. And of course, there’s Robert Forster (who earned Jackie Brown’s only oscar nomination for this role) as bail bondsman Max Cherry, who delivers the fifth best performance in this movie. The issue with this film isn’t that there’s too much going on, it’s that it isn’t handled well. Tarantino is adapting here, from Elmore Leonard’s novel Rum Punch. Watching Jackie Brown, it’s visible that it’s not entirely his work. It’s definitely a Tarantino film, but it’s not all there. Nevertheless, Jackie Brown can be fantastic at times. Jackson’s car-trunk assassination of one of his henchmen is a stellar scene, and his AK-47 monologue is so much fun. The plot is delightfully twisty and complex, and it has the vague feel of an Ocean’s 11-type heist thriller. It runs a little long and, unlike Pulp Fiction (which shares the runtime down to the minute), feels like it. Jackie Brown falls short of masterpiece status, but it’s still pretty great.
6- Django Unchained
We’re in the truly great stuff now. Everything from this point on, including Django, is a masterpiece, and it’s ridiculous that a film of this quality, a film that features Christoph Waltz as a bounty hunting dentist, falls on the bottom half of this list. Jamie Foxx’s fantastic lead role as the title character is overshadowed by some of the best performances in any Tarantino movie, on behalf of Waltz, Samuel L Jackson, and Leonardo DiCaprio (more on that one in a little bit). It’s a brilliant redemption story, and it contains one of the finest (and bloodiest) scenes in Tarantino’s filmography in the Candieland Massacre. It’s nothing short of an epic, something that might’ve been made by Sergio Leone or David Lean if they were buried in the pet sematary and came back more disturbed and violent. It’s also far more exhilarating and fun than any movie about slavery has any right to be, in kind of an Inglourious Basterds-type way. As for DiCaprio’s role, it’s one of his career best and it’s a shame he wasn’t even nominated for an oscar for it. His vindictive plantation owner, Calvin Candie, is nothing short of terrifying as he menaces over every single frame he’s in with conniving faux-properness. Django’s quest is probably the most compelling Tarantino has ever crafted, as the audience is with him all the way in the quest to find his wife. Django Unchained comes together in the kind of way that all of Tarantino’s best films do, and it’s certainly one of them.
5- Kill Bill
It’s one film. This is not negotiable. It’s one story and Vol. 2 picks up at the conclusion of Vol.1. It works best as a complete, glorious, 4-hour whole. The Bride is the second best Tarantino character (the best has yet to come on this list), and she’s played with masterful determination and sorrow by Uma Thurman. None of the main villains aren’t fleshed out (especially the eponymous one). In a feat incredibly rare for something of its length, not a single scene feels out of place. The house of blue leaves scene is one of my absolute favorite scenes in cinematic history, and Bill’s death is one of the greatest death scenes ever constructed. It’s a first-order epic, and everyone either loves or hates it. I’m a full-on devotee to the “love” side. It spans pretty much every genre, zigzagging from a Samurai film to anime to a western to a sort of exploitation horror-type thing (the box). The cliffhanger at the end of volume 1 is one of the best, and it’s scientifically impossible to watch it without immediately watching volume 2 (trust me, I know science and stuff). It’s impeccable, awesome, and brilliant. It’s the film that Quentin Tarantino would make if given an infinite budget and access to any actor he could want. How Thurman and David Carradine didn’t get oscar consideration baffles me.
4- Reservoir Dogs
Where it all started. Reservoir Dogs launched a half-dozen careers (including QT’s), revitalized a couple more (Harvey Keitel and Lawrence Tierney) and firmly entrenched itself into cinematic history. It’s one of the all time greatest independent films, and it’s an independent film to its very core (although it doesn’t really feel like it). It’s so famously low-budget that the iconic suits were provided for free by a crime film fan and the other clothes worn by the characters were the actors’ own. There’s so many iconic scenes, such as the opening diner scene (Like a Virgin and Steve Buscemi’s tipping monologue in the same scene), the slow-mo opening credits scene (one of the greatest opening credits sequences ever) and of course, that one. Michael Madsen’s psychotic lunatic torturing a cop to Stealer’s Wheel’s Stuck in the Middle with You is many things, including the greatest needle drop ever, possibly Tarantino’s finest scene, and the beginning of one of the greatest filmmaking careers of the modern era because, let’s face it, without it the film wouldn’t have been as big of a success. Reservoir Dogs is another one that just comes together perfectly, combining stellar performances, spectacular writing, and tension that you can cut with a knife on every single watch. Reservoir Dogs is a pop culture landmark and a cinematic masterwork, and it doesn’t even manage to crack Quentin Tarantino’s top 3 films.
3- Once Upon a Time… In Hollywood
Tarantino’s latest is one of his absolute best, which is odd considering how much it diverges from his other work. It’s far less urgent and tense, it progresses slowly, and it takes a far more humane and tender approach to its characters. (What could be construable as spoilers approaching) Its revisionism is done with glee, similar to Basterds and Django, but there’s a softer edge to it. These characters, for all of their outward projections of toughness and machismo, care about each other. But yet for all of Hollywood’s rarities, it couldn’t have been made by anyone else. It meanders and often stands still, but it contains sequences of tension unparalleled even in his own filmography. The Spahn Ranch sequence is one of his absolute best- it felt to me reminiscent of Basterds’ basement bar scene. And the climax is as shocking, violent, and brilliant as anything he’s ever done. Overall, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood is essential Tarantino. It’s a completely unforgettable masterpiece. The further removed I am from my first viewing, the more I feel that this placement is right. Who knows? After further viewings, it might be even higher.
This was unbelievably close to taking the top spot. It’s another one of Tarantino’s latter-career revisionist history epics, an oddly specific genre he would return to for Django Unchained and The Hateful Eight (and, as it turns out, Once Upon a time in Hollywood). Basterds seems to get better with every rewatch, as every one of the aspects that makes it great holds up. Brad Pitt is at his best, Michael Fassbender is ridiculous in his two or three (not so brief) scenes, Christoph Waltz (duh) turns in an all time performance, and god it’s so much fun to watch Hitler’s skin slide off of his head. The climactic theater scene is incredible and it’s still not the best scene in the film. The half hour basement bar scene is possibly the greatest thing Tarantino has ever done, and it’s a masterclass in screenwriting, acting, and tension (soooo much tension). It’s so much fun, brilliant on a technical level, and unexpectedly funny (Hugo. Stiglitz.). It’s worth noting that Mike Myers is in it, and also Winston Churchill is played by Rod Taylor, who happens to be the male lead in Hitchcock’s The Birds (this isn’t necessary information, I just want as many people to know as possible). And now the time has come to talk about Waltz. His Nazi Hans Landa is disarmingly courteous and sophisticated, and he views his work as just that: work. He’s conniving, he’s terrifying, and worst of all- he’s charming. He’s Tarantino’s greatest character, period. He’s an all time great villain, and the secret to the whole thing. The opening scene at the farmhouse is one of the best acted ever, and it would work as a short film on an oscar-worthy level. Inglourious Basterds is perfect. It just might be Tarantino’s masterpiece.
1- Pulp Fiction
Shocker, right? There’s a reason that Pulp Fiction is consistently hailed as Tarantino’s masterpiece, and it’s that it’s simply one of the greatest films ever made. Endlessly rewatchable and quotable, Pulp Fiction is another one that has totally ingrained itself into pop culture. It features one of the all time best death scenes (Aw man, I shot Marvin in the face), is absolutely hilarious, (He hid this uncomfortable hunk of metal up his ass…, also Marvin’s aforementioned demise). It’s Christopher Walken at his absolute best, if only for one scene (similar to his role in Annie Hall). Harvey Keitel is at a similar best in his iconic turn as The Wolf. Any number of scenes have become iconic, from the jackrabbit slim’s twist contest to the scene in Brent’s apartment (try to pick a favorite between “SAY WHAT AGAIN” and “ENGLISH, MOTHERF***ER”). Bruce Willis is in peak form, as are (obviously) Samuel L Jackson and John Travolta. The final scene in the diner stands out as one of the most well-written in all of Tarantino’s films. Don’t even get me started on the theory that the briefcase contains Marsellus Wallace’s soul. There’s too much to talk about with Pulp Fiction and most of it has been said already, so suffice it to say that it’s a masterwork that works ceaselessly throughout its entire runtime. As close as Inglourious Basterds may be, this is the obvious number one. In the 25 years since its release, Tarantino has never topped it, nor has anyone else (with the exception of maybe Barry Jenkins with Moonlight). Tarantino’s career is as illustrious as anyone’s, and this is the film that epitomizes that. I’ve been writing for two hours now, so if you’ll excuse me I’m going to go home and have a heart attack.
Today, April 26th, is (unofficially) Alien day, named after the planet LV-426 in the legendary movie. So what better time to look back on Ridley Scott’s masterpiece (which turns 40 this year)? Spoilers ahead.
The original Alien, released in 1979, is quite simply legendary. It’s spawned a franchise and a multi-film crossover (it’s probably better not to think about that, though), features one of the most legendary horror movie monsters in history (see above) and one of the most absolutely terrifying jump scares ever filmed (also see above). It’s been endlessly parodied (most notably in The Simpsons and Spaceballs). It has possibly the single most iconic tagline ever. It provided the world with one of the greatest heroes in not just horror, but all of cinema. It’s built a reputation as an absolute touchstone in cinematic history, one of the greatest of all horror films and sci-fi films (and, to be honest, just kinda films). What’s truly amazing about Alien, however, is that it 100% deserves its legacy. Four decades after its original release, it still terrifies and amazes. The aforementioned jump scare somehow manages to maintain its horror on repeat viewings, the climax of the film is exactly as intense on every watch. Visually, Scott’s directorial brilliance shines through throughout the entire film, from the mysterious, alluring shots of the alien planet to the eerie, frightening darkness that conceals the monster for most of its existence aboard the Nostromo. How, after 40 years, does Alien hold up so well?
My first experience with Alien was a few months ago, before I was a horror movie fan. Alien is a major reason for my obsession with the genre, due to the experience that was my initial viewing. Alien was simply different from anything I had seen, and I’m positive that this has been the experience of many, many other people who have become acquainted with the film over the last 40 years. One thing that makes Alien so fascinating is that it famously isn’t in a hurry. The first half of the movie is building up the atmosphere that forms the crux of its greatness in the second. Alien unfolds at such a slow pace, and this is because there’s so little that happens. The major events are as follows: The crew of the Nostromo is woken from sleep due to a distress signal. Some of the crew embarks onto the planet that sent out the signal. One of them is attacked by an unidentified organism. He is brought onto the ship in a coma. He wakes up and is then immediately killed (in possibly the greatest death scene in the history of film, another accolade for Alien). The alien that bursts out of his chest escapes into the ship. The rest of the film is the surviving crew slowly getting picked off one by one (save for Sigourney Weaver’s iconic Ripley and Jones the cat) punctuated by a massive revelation that they’ve been set up to die so that the Weyland-Yutani corporation, which employs them, can get their hands on the alien. These events are stretched out over a runtime of 1 hour and 56 minutes, and Alien never manages to feel boring for a second. Ridley Scott’s skill is visible in every frame as he constructs a flawless masterwork of tension in which long periods unfold with legitimately nothing happening. Alien is undeniably sparse, and this is where it succeeds, where it finds the otherworldly excellence that evades the countless pretenders to the throne that followed it.
Alien’s unique style is a reason why it holds up today, but the reason why it’s entered the general consciousness in the way it has is because of single indelible moments and aspects of the film. Would Alien be the classic it is today if it weren’t for the legendary chestburster scene? Would it routinely crack top 10 lists of the greatest horror movies ever if the vent scene (the mere words make the hairs on the back of my neck stand up) had been done differently? How many movies can you name whose tagline is so intertwined with the film itself? The image of the egg cracking open to reveal a green glow. The facehugger. All of these are iconic images that any casual movie fan is familiar with. There is one thing, however, that is more memorable, more famous, more terrifying than any of those.
I’m referring, of course, to the Xenomorph. The Alien itself. H.R. Giger’s notorious creature is an icon in its own right, a horror villain on par with Freddy Krueger, Jason Voorhees, Michael Myers, and Hannibal Lecter. There’s endless literature on how the creature was designed to elicit specific responses, how it was designed, created, etc. At the most basic level, the thing is just straight-up terrifying.
If Alien were simply the sum of its parts, it would be a pretty fantastic movie. But it’s not. There’s a quality to watching Alien that’s hard to pin down. It’s endlessly rewatchable, boundlessly iconic, and pretty close to, if not totally, perfect. Alien is one of the greatest cinematic classics there is. Over the last 40 years, you can hear a whole lot of people scream.
The Movie Files 