- published: 12 Dec 2009
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- author: HitmonTom
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- 1984 (advertisement)
- 20th Century Fox
- A Boy and His Dog
- A Few Good Men
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Dallas
Dallas (
/ˈdæləs/) is the third-largest city in the state of Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States. Divided between Collin, Dallas, Denton, Kaufman, and Rockwall counties, the city had a population of 1,197,816 in 2010, according to the United States Census Bureau.
The city is the largest economic center of the 12-county Dallas–Fort Worth–Arlington metropolitan area (the DFW MSA) that according to the March 2010 U.S. Census Bureau release, had a population of 6,371,773. The metroplex economy is the sixth largest in the United States, with a 2010 gross metropolitan product of $374 billion.
Dallas was founded in 1841 and was formally incorporated as a city in February 1856. The city's economy is primarily based on banking, commerce, telecommunications, computer technology, energy, healthcare and medical research, transportation and logistics. The city is home to the third largest concentration of Fortune 500 companies in the nation. Located in North Texas and a major city in the American South, Dallas is the main core of the largest inland metropolitan area in the United States that lacks any navigable link to the sea.
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Hollywood
Hollywood is a district in Los Angeles, California, United States situated west-northwest of downtown Los Angeles. Due to its fame and cultural identity as the historical center of movie studios and movie stars, the word Hollywood is often used as a metonym of American cinema. Today, much of the movie industry has dispersed into surrounding areas such as the Westside neighborhood, and the San Fernando and Santa Clarita Valleys, but significant auxiliary industries, such as editing, effects, props, post-production, and lighting companies remain in Hollywood, as does the backlot of Paramount Pictures.
On February 16, 2005, California Assembly Members Jackie Goldberg and Paul Koretz introduced a bill to require California to keep specific records on Hollywood as if it were independent, although it is not the typical practice of the City of Los Angeles to establish specific boundaries for districts or neighborhoods. For this to be done, the boundaries were defined. The bill was unanimously supported by the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce and the Los Angeles City Council. Assembly Bill 588 was approved by the Governor of California on August 28, 2006, and now the district of Hollywood has official borders. The border can be loosely described as the area east of West Hollywood, south of Mulholland Drive, Laurel Canyon, Cahuenga Boulevard, and Barham Boulevard, and the cities of Burbank and Glendale, north of Melrose Avenue and west of the Golden State Freeway and Hyperion Avenue. This includes all of Griffith Park and Los Feliz[citation needed] – two areas that were hitherto considered separate from Hollywood by most Angelenos. The population of the district, including Los Feliz, as of the 2000 census was 123,436 and the median household income was $33,409 in 1999.
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Japan
Japan
i/dʒəˈpæn/ (Japanese: 日本 Nihon or Nippon; formally 日本国 
Nippon-koku or Nihon-koku, literally the State of Japan) is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south. The characters that make up Japan's name mean "sun-origin", which is why Japan is sometimes referred to as the "Land of the Rising Sun".
Japan is an archipelago of 6,852 islands. The four largest islands are Honshū, Hokkaidō, Kyūshū and Shikoku, together accounting for ninety-seven percent of Japan's land area. Japan has the world's tenth-largest population, with over 127 million people. The Greater Tokyo Area, which includes the de facto capital city of Tokyo and several surrounding prefectures, is the largest metropolitan area in the world, with over 30 million residents.
Archaeological research indicates that people lived in Japan as early as the Upper Paleolithic period. The first written mention of Japan is in Chinese history texts from the 1st century AD. Influence from other nations followed by long periods of isolation has characterized Japan's history. In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, victory in the First Sino-Japanese War, the Russo-Japanese War and World War I allowed Japan to expand its empire during a period of increasing militarism. The Second Sino-Japanese War of 1937 expanded into part of World War II in 1941, which came to an end in 1945 following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Since adopting its revised constitution in 1947, Japan has maintained a unitary constitutional monarchy with an emperor and an elected parliament called the Diet.
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Library of Congress
The Library of Congress is the research library of the United States Congress, de facto national library of the United States of America, and the oldest federal cultural institution in the United States. Located in four buildings in Washington, D.C., as well as the Packard Campus in Culpeper, Virginia, it is the largest library in the world by shelf space and number of books. The head of the Library is the Librarian of Congress, currently James H. Billington.
The Library of Congress was instituted for Congress in 1800, and was housed in the United States Capitol for most of the 19th century. After much of the original collection had been destroyed during the War of 1812, Thomas Jefferson sold 6,487 books, his entire personal collection, to the library in 1815. After a period of decline during the mid-19th century the Library of Congress began to grow rapidly in both size and importance after the American Civil War, culminating in the construction of a separate library building and the transference of all copyright deposit holdings to the Library. During the rapid expansion of the 20th century the Library of Congress assumed a preeminent public role, becoming a "library of last resort" and expanding its mission for the benefit of scholars and the American people.
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London
London
i/ˈlʌndən/ is the capital city of England and the United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its founding by the Romans, who named it Londinium. London's ancient core, the City of London, largely retains its square-mile mediaeval boundaries. Since at least the 19th century, the name London has also referred to the metropolis developed around this core. The bulk of this conurbation forms the London region and the Greater London administrative area, governed by the elected Mayor of London and the London Assembly.
London is a leading global city, with strengths in the arts, commerce, education, entertainment, fashion, finance, healthcare, media, professional services, research and development, tourism and transport all contributing to its prominence. It is the world's leading financial centre alongside New York City and has the fifth-largest city GDP in the world (and the largest in Europe). London has been described as a world cultural capital. It was the world's most visited city during 2011 and London Heathrow is the world's busiest airport by number of international passengers. London's 43 universities form the largest concentration of higher education in Europe. In 2012 London will become the first city to host the modern Summer Olympic Games three times.
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Los Angeles
Los Angeles (i/lɒs ˈændʒələs/ loss-AN-jə-ləs; Spanish: [los ˈaŋxeles], which is written Los Ángeles; British pronounciation /lɒs ˈændʒəliːz/ loss-AN-jə-leez) with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in the state of California, and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of 468.67 square miles (1,213.8 km2), and is located in Southern California. Often known by its initials L.A., the city is the focal point of the larger Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana metropolitan statistical area and Greater Los Angeles Area region, which contain 12,828,837 and nearly 18 million people respectively as of 2010, making it one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world and the second largest in the United States. Los Angeles is also the seat of Los Angeles County, the most populated and one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the United States, while the entire Los Angeles area itself has been recognized as the most diverse of the nation's largest cities. The city's inhabitants are referred to as "Angelenos".
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New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. The city is referred to as New York City or The City of New York to distinguish it from the State of New York, of which it is a part. As a global power city, New York exerts a significant impact upon commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and entertainment. The home of the United Nations Headquarters, New York is an important center for international diplomacy and has been described as the cultural capital of the world.
Located on one of the world's largest natural harbors, New York City consists of five boroughs, each of which comprises a state county. The five boroughs—The Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan, Queens, and Staten Island—were consolidated into a single city in 1898. With a Census-estimated 2011 population of 8,244,910 distributed over a land area of just 305 square miles (790 km2), New York is the most densely populated major city in the United States. As many as 800 languages are spoken in New York, making it the most linguistically diverse city in the world. The New York City Metropolitan Area's population is the United States' largest, with 18.9 million people distributed over 6,720 square miles (17,400 km2), and is also part of the most populous combined statistical area in the United States, containing 22.1 million people as of the 2010 Census.
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Nigeria
Nigeriai/naɪˈdʒɪəriə/, officially the Federal Republic of Nigeria, is a federal constitutional republic comprising 36 states and its Federal Capital Territory, Abuja. The country is located in West Africa and shares land borders with the Republic of Benin in the west, Chad and Cameroon in the east, and Niger in the north. Its coast in the south lies on the Gulf of Guinea on the Atlantic Ocean. The three largest and most influential ethnic groups in Nigeria are the Hausa, Igbo and Yoruba.
In terms of religion Nigeria is roughly split half and half between Muslims in the North and Christians in the South; a very small minority practice traditional religion. Since 2002 there have been a spate of clashes, particularly in the North of the country, between government forces and the Islamists Boko Haram, militant jihadists who seek to establish sharia law.
The people of Nigeria have an extensive history. Archaeological evidence shows that human habitation of the area dates back to at least 9000 BCE. The area around the Benue and Cross River is thought to be the original homeland of the Bantu migrants who spread across most of central and southern Africa in waves between the 1st millennium BC and the 2nd millennium.
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Paris
Coordinates: 48°51′24″N 2°21′03″E / 48.8567°N 2.3508°E / 48.8567; 2.3508
Paris (i/ˈpærɨs/; French: [paʁi] (
listen)) is the capital and largest city of France. It is situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region (or Paris Region, French: Région parisienne). As of January 2008 the city of Paris, within its administrative limits (the 20 arrondissements) largely unchanged since 1860, has an estimated population of 2,211,297 and a metropolitan population of 12,089,098, and is one of the most populated metropolitan areas in Europe. Paris was the largest city in the Western world for about 1,000 years, prior to the 19th century, and the largest in the entire world between the 16th and 19th centuries.
Paris is today one of the world's leading business and cultural centres, and its influences in politics, education, entertainment, media, fashion, science, and the arts all contribute to its status as one of the world's major global cities. It hosts the headquarters of many international organizations such as UNESCO, the OECD, the International Chamber of Commerce or the European Space Agency. Paris is considered one of the greenest and most liveable cities in Europe. It is also one of the most expensive.
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Shepperton Studios
Shepperton Studios is a film studio in Shepperton, Surrey, England with a history dating back to 1931 since when many notable films have been made there. It is now part of The Pinewood Studios Group together with Pinewood and Teddington Studios in the UK, and Pinewood Toronto Studios in Canada, Pinewood Indomina Studios in the Dominican Republic, Pinewood Studio Berlin in Germany and Pinewood Iskandar Malaysia Studios in Malaysia.
Before there was Shepperton Studios, there was Littleton Park, which was built in the seventeenth century by local nobleman, Thomas Wood. The mansion still stands proudly on the 60-acre site.
Scottish businessman Norman Loudon purchased Littleton Park in 1931 for use by his new film company, Sound Film Producing & Recording Studios; the facility opened in 1932. The studio, which produced both shorts and features, was quickly successful and rapidly expanded. Proximity to the Vickers-Armstrongs aircraft factory at Brooklands, which attracted German bombers, disrupted filming in World War II, as did the requisitioning of the studio in 1941 by the government, who first used it for sugar storage and later to create decoy aircraft and munitions for positioning in the Middle East. The Ministry of Aircraft Production also took over part of the studios for dispersed production of Vickers Wellington bomber components early in WW2.
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Surrey
Surrey /ˈsʌri/ is a county in the South East of England, and one of the home counties. The county borders Greater London, Kent, East Sussex, West Sussex, Hampshire, and Berkshire. The historic county town is Guildford.Surrey County Council sits at Kingston upon Thames, although this has been part of Greater London since 1965. The London boroughs of Lambeth, Wandsworth and Southwark were considered part of Surrey until 1889; and Croydon, Kingston, Merton, Sutton, Barnes and Richmond - all now reclassified as part of Greater London - were part of Surrey until 1965.
Surrey is divided into 11 boroughs and districts: Elmbridge, Epsom and Ewell, Guildford, Mole Valley, Reigate and Banstead, Runnymede, Spelthorne, Surrey Heath, Tandridge, Waverley, Woking. After the elections of 1 May 2008, the Conservatives are in control of 10 out of 11 councils in Surrey, with Epsom and Ewell in Residents Association control. The Conservatives hold all 11 Parliamentary constituencies within the county borders.
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United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland (commonly known as the United Kingdom, the UK, or Britain) is a sovereign state located off the north-western coast of continental Europe. The country includes the island of Great Britain, the north-eastern part of the island of Ireland and many smaller islands. Northern Ireland is the only part of the UK that shares a land border with another sovereign state—the Republic of Ireland. Apart from this land border the UK is surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the North Sea, the English Channel and the Irish Sea.
The United Kingdom is a unitary state governed under a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary system, with its seat of government in the capital city of London. It is a country in its own right and consists of four countries: England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. There are three devolved administrations, each with varying powers, based in Belfast, Edinburgh and Cardiff, the capitals of Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Associated with the UK, but not constitutionally part of it, are three Crown Dependencies. The United Kingdom has fourteen overseas territories. These are remnants of the British Empire which, at its height in 1922, encompassed almost a quarter of the world's land surface and was the largest empire in history. British influence can still be observed in the language, culture and legal systems of many of its former territories.
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Water Oakley
Water Oakley is a hamlet on the River Thames in the civil parish of Bray in the English county of Berkshire.
It is the location of both Bray Studios and the Oakley Court Hotel. It first appeared on maps around 1800. However, the name 'Oakley' is derived from the Old English ac-leah which translates as 'a clearing in an oak wood'. Local folklore suggests a Saxon church there was demolished around 1293 to build St Michael's Church in Bray.
Coordinates: 51°29′31″N 0°40′26″W / 51.492°N 0.674°W / 51.492; -0.674
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African American
African Americans (also referred to as Black Americans or Afro-Americans, and formerly as American Negroes) are citizens or residents of the United States that have ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa.
African Americans make up the single largest racial minority in the United States. Most African Americans are of West and Central African descent and are descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States. However, some immigrants from African, Caribbean, Central American or South American nations, or their descendants, may be identified or self-identify with the term.
African-American history starts in the 16th century with African slaves who quickly rose up against the Spanish explorer Lucas Vázquez de Ayllón and progresses to the present day, with Barack Obama as the 44th and current President of the United States. Between those landmarks there have been events and issues, both resolved and ongoing, including slavery, racism, Reconstruction, development of the African-American community, participation in the great military conflicts of the United States, racial segregation, and the Civil Rights Movement.
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Alan Dean Foster
Alan Dean Foster (born November 18, 1946) is an American author of fantasy and science fiction, with many series to his credit as well as a large number of single novels. He is especially prolific in his novelizations of film scripts.
He earned a bachelor's degree in political science and a MFA from the University of California, Los Angeles and currently resides in Prescott, Arizona, with his wife.
He is best known for his science fiction novels set in the Humanx Commonwealth, an interstellar ethical/political union of species including humankind and the insectoid Thranx. Many of these novels feature Philip Lynx ("Flinx"), an empathic young man who has found himself involved in something which threatens the survival of the Galaxy. Flinx's constant companion since childhood is a minidrag named Pip, a flying, empathic snake capable of spitting a highly corrosive and violently neurotoxic venom.
One of Foster's best-known fantasy works is the Spellsinger series, in which a young musician is summoned into a world populated by talking creatures where his music allows him to do real magic whose effects depends on the lyrics of the popular songs he sings (although with somewhat unpredictable results).
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Alfred Hitchcock
Sir Alfred Joseph Hitchcock, KBE (13 August 1899 – 29 April 1980) was an English film director and producer. He pioneered many techniques in the suspense and psychological thriller genres. After a successful career in British cinema in both silent films and early talkies, Hitchcock moved to Hollywood. On 19 April 1955, he became an American citizen while remaining a British subject.
Over a career spanning more than half a century, Hitchcock fashioned for himself a distinctive and recognisable directorial style. He pioneered the use of a camera made to move in a way that mimics a person's gaze, forcing viewers to engage in a form of voyeurism. He framed shots to maximise anxiety, fear, or empathy, and used innovative film editing. His stories frequently feature fugitives on the run from the law alongside "icy blonde" female characters. Many of Hitchcock's films have twist endings and thrilling plots featuring depictions of violence, murder, and crime, although many of the mysteries function as decoys or "MacGuffins" meant only to serve thematic elements in the film and the extremely complex psychological examinations of the characters. Hitchcock's films also borrow many themes from psychoanalysis and feature strong sexual undertones. Through his cameo appearances in his own films, interviews, film trailers, and the television program Alfred Hitchcock Presents, he became a cultural icon. Hitchocks reputation as a filmmaker is offset by claims that he engaged in obsessive and controlling behaviour towards many of his leading ladies, and that in some cases this extended to physical abuse and sexual harrassment.
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Barry Norman
Barry Leslie Norman, CBE (born 21 August 1933 in London) is a British film critic, writer and media personality. He presented BBC Television's Film 72 (and successive years) until 1998.
Norman, the son of film director Leslie Norman and the brother of script editor and director Valerie Norman, was educated at a state primary school and at the Highgate School, a boys' independent school in North London. He did not go to university, but instead began his journalistic career at the Kensington News, later spending a period in South Africa where he developed a hostility to the situation created there by the emergence of apartheid.
By the 1960s, Norman was a prominent journalist, and show business editor of the Daily Mail until 1971, when he was made redundant. Subsequently, he wrote a column each Wednesday for The Guardian, also contributing leader columns to the newspaper.
He was one of the collaborators with Wally Fawkes on the long running cartoon strip Flook. He has also contributed a column to the Radio Times for many years, and has written a number of novels.
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Bill Gold
Bill Gold (born January 3, 1921) is an American graphic designer best known for thousands of movie poster designs.
His first film poster was for Yankee Doodle Dandy (1941), and his most recent work was for J. Edgar (2011).
During his 70-year career he has worked with some of Hollywood's greatest filmmakers, including Clint Eastwood, Alfred Hitchcock, Stanley Kubrick, Elia Kazan, Ridley Scott, and many more. Among his most famous film posters are those for Casablanca, A Clockwork Orange, and The Sting.
Bill Gold was born on January 3, 1921, in New York City. He studied illustration and design at Pratt Institute in New York. He began his professional design career in 1941, in the advertising department of Warner Bros. Bill Gold became head of poster design in 1947. In 1959 his brother Charlie joined him in the business and they formed BG Charles to do the film trailers. Charlie operated BG Charles in Los Angeles, while Bill operated in New York City. In 1987 Charlie left the business and retired to Vermont. Charlie Gold died on December 25, 2003 at the age of 75. Bill Gold lives in the New York region.
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Brothers Strause
Brothers Greg and Colin Strause (self-titled as Strause Brothers) are an American film directing duo, most famous for directing Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem and Skyline, and special effects artists. They are the founders of Hydraulx, a special effects company.
They began experimenting with visual effects in their early teens. In 1995, they moved to Los Angeles and started working on the special effects for The X-Files film. From there they moved on to big-budget films such as The Nutty Professor, Volcano and the iceberg sequence of James Cameron's Academy Award-winning Titanic. They then broke into the music video and commercial arena, handling the special effects for artists such as U2, Britney Spears, Godsmack, Tool and Aerosmith as well as spots for Nike, Jeep and Pepsi.
In 2000, Colin won an MTV Video Music Award for Best Art Direction for the Red Hot Chili Peppers' video, "Californication." This led the brothers to start directing under the moniker "The Brothers Strause," and their Linkin Park clip "Crawling" was nominated for Best Direction and Best Rock Video at the 2001 VMA's. Other artists they have directed for include A Perfect Circle, Nickelback, Paulina Rubio, Opeth, Flyleaf, Disturbed, Staind, Taproot and Abandoned Pools. Their music video for A Perfect Circle's "Passive" marked their second collaboration with the band. The video was shot almost entirely with thermal cameras and featured on the Constantine soundtrack and DVD.
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Carlo Rambaldi
Carlo Rambaldi (born 1925 in Vigarano Mainarda, Italy) is an Italian special effects artist who is most famous for designing the title character of the 1982 film E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial and the mechanical head-effects for the creature in Alien (for both Rambaldi won an Oscar). Rambaldi also has worked on Profondo Rosso (Deep Red) (1975), King Kong (1976), Close Encounters of the Third Kind (1977), Nightwing (1979), Possession (1981), Dune (1984), King Kong Lives (1986), and Cameron's Closet (1988).
Rambaldi has the distinction of being the first special effects artist to be required to prove that his work on a film was not 'real'. Dog-mutilation scenes in the 1971 film A Lizard in a Woman's Skin were so convincingly visceral that its director, Lucio Fulci, was prosecuted for offences relating to animal cruelty. Fulci would have served a two-year prison sentence had Rambaldi not exhibited the film's array of props to a courtroom, proving that the scene was not filmed using real animals.
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Chris Foss
Christopher "Chris" F. Foss (born 1946 in Guernsey, Channel Islands) is a British artist and science fiction illustrator. He is best known for his science fiction book covers and the black and white illustrations for the original editions of The Joy of Sex.
Foss's evocative science fiction book covers pioneered a much-imitated style featuring vast, colourful spaceships, machines and cities, often marked with mysterious symbols. Human figures are usually absent. These images are suggestive of science fiction in general rather than depictions of specific scenes from books, and therefore can be—and have been—used interchangeably on book covers. During the 1970s, Foss's images of future technology had the same iconic "defining" quality that H. R. Giger's would have in terms of depictions of alien or future life forms.
Books featuring Foss illustrations include the 1970s British paperback covers for Isaac Asimov's Foundation Trilogy, the Terran Trade Authority, several Edmund Cooper novels, and E. E. "Doc" Smith's Lensman and Skylark series. Some of the art he did produce was specific to the stories and some examples of this are the covers he did for the Grafton publications of the Demon Princes novels by Jack Vance in the late 1980s, Star King, The Killing Machine, The Palace of Love, The Face and The Book of Dreams.
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Christopher Tookey
Christopher Tookey (born 9 April 1950) is an English film critic. He has written for both the Sunday Telegraph and The Daily Mail.
Tookey was elected chairman of The Critics' Circle in 1995, but his bid to become vice-president floundered due to the position he took on the 1996 film Crash. Tookey campaigned for the film to be banned "on account of immorality", writing that "Crash is the point at which even a liberal society should draw the line."The Observer film critic Philip French wrote that Tookey's "campaigning was thought to be in breach of the Critics' Circle's objects of promoting the art of criticism and supporting the advancement of the arts." Tookey wrote a series of critical articles for the Mail regarding the film which saw Jonathan Coe of The New Statesman describe him as "the real architect of the antiCrash campaign". Tookey called for readers to boycott the products of distributor Sony, and questioned the suitability to the role of the then director of the British Board of Film Classification. Tookey denied charges that he was in favour of blanket censorship, writing in a letter to The Guardian that he has "frequently written and spoken against censorship and jumped to the defence of films (such as Pulp Fiction, Reservoir Dogs and The Life Of Brian) which struck me as victims of unjust repression in the past." He wrote in an article for Prospect magazine that his campaign against Crash was motivated by the fear that "Cronenberg's film might well have a "copycat effect" on a few unstable individuals" and could "also have a far more insidious longterm effect by eroticising sado-masochism and orthopaedic fetishism for people previously unaware of being turned on by acts of mutilation." Tookey was also concerned at the precedent set by releasing such a film with an 18 certificate.
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Chroma key
Chroma key compositing, or chroma keying, is a special effects / post-production technique for compositing (layering) two images or video streams together, used heavily in many fields to remove a background from the subject of a photo or video - particularly the newscasting, motion picture and videogame industries. A color range in the top layer is made transparent, revealing another image behind. The chroma keying technique is commonly used in video production and post-production. This technique is also referred to as color keying, colour-separation overlay (CSO; primarily by the BBC), or by various terms for specific color-related variants such as green screen, and blue screen - chroma keying can be done with backgrounds of any color that are uniform and distinct, but green and blue backgrounds are more commonly used because they differ most distinctly in hue from most human skin colors and no part of the subject being filmed or photographed may duplicate a color used in the background. It is commonly used for weather forecast broadcasts, wherein the news presenter appears to be standing in front of a large map during live television newscasts, though in actuality it is a large blue or green background. When using a blue screen, different weather maps are added on the parts of the image where the color is blue. If the news presenter wears blue clothes, his clothes will also be replaced with the background video. A complementary system is used for green screens. Chroma keying is also used in the entertainment industry for special effects in movies and videogames. The advanced state of the technology and much commercially available computer software, such as Pinnacle Studio, Adobe Premiere, and dozens of other computer programs, makes it possible and relatively easy for the average home computer user to create videos using the "chromakey" function and easily affordable greenscreen or bluescreen kits.
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Damon Lindelof
Damon Laurence Lindelof (born April 24, 1973) is an American television writer and executive, most recently noted as the co-creator and executive producer for the television series Lost. He has written for and produced Crossing Jordan, and wrote for Nash Bridges, Wasteland, and the MTV anthology series Undressed. Before these, he worked on reviewing scripts at Paramount, Fox, and Alan Ladd studios.
Lindelof is a native of Teaneck, New Jersey, where he attended Teaneck High School, a school whose diverse student body he credits with expanding his horizons as a writer. He celebrated his bar mitzvah in Teaneck, where he would join his family at synagogue on the Sabbath, and recounted how the fact that "I was a Jewish white kid growing up in Teaneck, but at the same time, I had African and Filipino and Asian friends and to have that experience all through high school while getting an awesome education was wonderful." Lindelof attended film school at New York University, performing briefly in the band Petting Zoo, and moved to Los Angeles after graduating.
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Dante Alighieri
Durante degli Alighieri, mononymously referred to as Dante (UK /ˈdænti/, US /ˈdɑːnteɪ/; Italian: [ˈdante]; c1265–1321), was an Italian poet, prose writer, literary theorist, moral philosopher, and political thinker. He is best known for the monumental epic poem Commedia, later named La divina commedia (Divine Comedy), considered the greatest literary work composed in the Italian language and a masterpiece of world literature.
In Italy he is known as il Sommo Poeta ("the Supreme Poet") or just il Poeta. Dante, Petrarch, and Boccaccio are also known as "the three fountains" or "the three crowns". Dante is also called the "Father of the Italian language".
Dante was born in Florence, Italy. The exact date of Dante's birth is unknown, although it is generally believed to be around 1265. This can be deduced from autobiographic allusions in La Divina Commedia, "the Inferno" (Halfway through the journey we are living, implying that Dante was around 35 years old, as the average lifespan according to the Bible (Psalms 89:10, Vulgate) is 70 years; and as the imaginary travel took place in 1300, Dante must have been born around 1265). Some verses of the Paradiso section of the Divine Comedy also provide a possible clue that he was born under the sign of Gemini: "As I revolved with the eternal twins, I saw revealed from hills to river outlets, the threshing-floor that makes us so ferocious" (XXII 151-154). In 1265 the Sun was in Gemini approximately during the period of May 11 to June 11.
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David Fincher
David Andrew Leo Fincher (born August 28, 1962) is an American film and music video director who is known for his dark and stylish thrillers, such as Seven (1995), The Game (1997), Fight Club (1999), Panic Room (2002), and Zodiac (2007). Fincher received Academy Award nominations for Best Director for his 2008 film The Curious Case of Benjamin Button and his 2010 film The Social Network, which also won him the Golden Globe and the BAFTA for Best Director. His most recent film is 2011's The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, an English-language adaptation of Stieg Larsson's novel of the same name.
Fincher was born on August 28, 1962 in Denver, Colorado, the son of Claire Mae (née Boettcher), a mental health nurse who worked in drug addiction programs, and Howard Kelly Fincher, who worked as a bureau chief for Life under the name Jack Fincher. When Fincher was two years old, the family moved to San Anselmo in Marin County, California. Fincher moved to Ashland, Oregon in his teens, where he graduated from Ashland High School. Inspired by Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, Fincher began making movies at age eight with an 8 mm camera. Fincher eschewed the film school route, getting a job loading cameras and doing other hands-on work for John Korty’s Korty Films. He was later hired by Industrial Light & Magic in 1983, where he worked on productions for Twice Upon a Time, Star Wars: Episode VI – Return of the Jedi, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom. In 1984, he left ILM to direct a commercial for the American Cancer Society, that would show a fetus smoking a cigarette. This quickly brought Fincher to the attention of producers in Los Angeles and he was given the chance to direct the documentary The Beat of the Live Drum featuring Rick Springfield in 1985. Though he would continue to direct spots for companies like Revlon, Converse, Nike, Pepsi, Sony, and Levi's, Fincher soon discovered music videos and went on to direct many promos.
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David Giler
David Giler is an American filmmaker who has been active in the motion picture industry since the early 1960s.
He started his career as a writer, providing scripts for television programs such as Kraft Suspense Theatre and The Man from U.N.C.L.E.. He then moved to screenplays in the 70's, helping to write films such as The Parallax View and the original version of Fun With Dick and Jane.
He produced his first film in 1970, the critically reviled Myra Breckinridge, an adaptation of Gore Vidal's controversial novel (he also co-wrote the film with director Michael Sarne).
He then helped Walter Hill produce the legendary horror thriller Alien in 1979, and it is for this film that he is probably best remembered. He and Hill became embroiled in a much-publicized behind-the-scenes fight with Alien's original writer, Dan O'Bannon, over who was to receive screenplay credit. Giler and Hill claim that they completely rewrote the script from top to bottom, and therefore they wanted to relegate O'Bannon to a "story by" credit only. O'Bannon claims that they did little more than change the names of the characters and dialogue, and felt that the two were trying to bully him out of the more prestigious screenplay credit. As evidenced by the interviews on the supplemental DVD features, the two parties were extremely antagonistic when it comes to this topic (O'Bannon has since died), though O'Bannon was the only one to receive credit for the screenplay in the final film. The various drafts can be found online, allowing audiences to decide for themselves.
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Derek Vanlint
Derek Vanlint, C.S.C. (7 November 1932 – 23 February 2010) was a Canadian cinematographer. He was best known as the cinematographer for the 1979 science fiction film, Alien. His work on this film earned him a Best Cinematography Award nomination from the British Society of Cinematographers.
After Alien, Vanlint was Director of Photography for the 1981 fantasy-adventure film Dragonslayer. He also handled miniature photography on the 2000 film X-Men, based on the Marvel Comics magazine. He was both director and cameraman on the horror film The Spreading Ground starring Dennis Hopper.
In addition to his work in feature films, Vanlint was a veteran television commercial director. He worked on advertisements for such companies as British Airways, Chevrolet, Coca-Cola, General Motors, Guinness, Kellogg's, Levi's, Maxwell House, Pepsi, and Visa.
Vanlint died in Toronto following a short illness on 23 February 2010. He was 77 years old.
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Eddie Powell
Eddie Powell (9 March 1927 - 11 August 2000) was a British stuntman.
Powell performed stuntwork in several films for Hammer Studios, serving as a regular stunt double for Christopher Lee. His credits during this time included portraying Dracula in Dracula: Prince of Darkness (1965) and the Mummy in The Mummy's Shroud (1967). He also appeared in several James Bond films and in Daleks - Invasion Earth 2150 AD (1966).
Powell portrayed the Aliens for stuntwork in Alien (1979) and Aliens (1986). He also did stunts in Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989), Batman (1989), and Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves (1991).
He was married to Hammer wardrobe mistress Rosemary Burrows and is the brother of Joe Powell, also a film stuntman.
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Ellen Ripley
Ellen Ripley is a fictional character and the protagonist of the Alien film series played by American actress Sigourney Weaver. The character is often considered as one of the best female protagonists of all time: it was heralded for challenging gender roles, particularly in the science fiction, action and horror genres, gave world recognition to Weaver and remains her most famous role to date.
The character has been included in many Best Characters lists: In 2011, Total Film ranked her first of their top of the 100 Greatest Female Characters. Ripley has been selected as the eighth greatest hero in American cinema history by the American Film Institute, as 5th coolest hero in pop culture by Entertainment Weekly, the 9th greatest movie character ever by Empire (the highest-placing female of the list), and the eighth best movie character of all time by Premiere, In 2011, John Scalzi called her "Clearly the Best Female Character in Scifi Film".
Weaver's performances was very praised as well: for Aliens, she earned her first Academy Award nomination for Best Actress, which is now seen as a landmark in the recognition of science fiction, action, and horror genres, when the Academy gave little recognition to science fiction. For her role in the franchise, Weaver has also been nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in a Motion Picture Drama, a BAFTA Award for Best Leading Newcomer, and four Saturn Awards for Best Actress, winning one for Aliens.
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George Lucas
George Walton Lucas, Jr. (born May 14, 1944) is an American film producer, screenwriter, director, and entrepreneur. He is the founder, chairman and chief executive of Lucasfilm. He is best known as the creator of the space opera franchise Star Wars and the archaeologist-adventurer character Indiana Jones. Lucas is one of the American film industry's most financially successful directors/producers, with an estimated net worth of $3.2 billion as of 2011.
George Lucas was born in Modesto, California, the son of Dorothy Ellinore (née Bomberger) and George Walton Lucas, Sr. (1913–1991), who owned a stationery store.
Lucas grew up in the Central Valley town of Modesto and his early passion for cars and motor racing would eventually serve as inspiration for his USC student film 1:42.08, as well as his Oscar-nominated low-budget phenomenon, American Graffiti. Long before Lucas became obsessed with film making, he wanted to be a race-car driver, and he spent most of his high school years racing on the underground circuit at fairgrounds and hanging out at garages. However, a near-fatal accident in his souped-up Autobianchi Bianchina on June 12, 1962, just days before his high school graduation, quickly changed his mind. Instead of racing, he attended Modesto Junior College and later got accepted into a junior college to study anthropology. While taking liberal arts courses, he developed a passion for cinematography and camera tricks. George Lucas graduated from USC in California.
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Harry Dean Stanton
Harry Dean Stanton (born July 14, 1926) is an American actor, musician, and singer. Stanton's career has spanned over fifty years, which has seen him star in such films as Paris, Texas, Kelly's Heroes, Dillinger, Alien, Repo Man, Pretty In Pink, The Last Temptation of Christ, Wild at Heart, The Green Mile and The Pledge. In the late 2000s, he played a recurring role in the HBO television series Big Love. In 2012, he had a brief cameo in the superhero blockbuster The Avengers.
Stanton was born in West Irvine, Kentucky, the son of Ersel (née Moberly), a hair dresser, and Sheridan Harry Stanton, a tobacco farmer and barber. His parents divorced when Stanton was in high school and later remarried.[citation needed] He has two younger brothers, Archie and Ralph, and a younger half-brother, Stan.[citation needed] Stanton attended the University of Kentucky in Lexington, Kentucky, where he studied journalism and radio arts.[citation needed] He also studied at the Pasadena Playhouse in Pasadena, California, where his classmates included his friends Tyler MacDuff and Dana Andrews.[citation needed]
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Howard Hanson
Howard Harold Hanson (October 28, 1896 – February 26, 1981) was an American composer, conductor, educator, music theorist, and champion of American classical music. As director for 40 years of the Eastman School of Music, he built a high-quality school and provided opportunities for commissioning and performing American music. He won a Pulitzer Prize for one of his works and received numerous other awards.
Hanson was born in Wahoo, Nebraska, to Swedish immigrant parents, Hans and Hilma (Eckstrom) Hanson. In his youth he studied music with his mother. Later, he studied at Luther College in Wahoo, receiving a diploma in 1911, then at the Institute of Musical Art, the forerunner of the Juilliard School, in New York City, where he studied with the composer and music theorist Percy Goetschius in 1914. Afterward he attended Northwestern University, where he studied composition with church music expert Peter Lutkin and Arne Oldberg in Chicago. Throughout his education, Hanson studied piano, cello and trombone. Hanson earned his BA degree in music from Northwestern in 1916, where he began his teaching career as a teacher's assistant.
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Ian Holm
Sir Ian Holm, CBE (born 12 September 1931) is an English actor known for his stage work and many film roles. He received the 1967 Tony Award for Best Featured Actor for his performance as Lenny in The Homecoming and the 1998 Laurence Olivier Award for Best Actor for his performance in the title role of King Lear. He was nominated for the 1981 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as athletics trainer Sam Mussabini in Chariots of Fire. Other well-known film roles include the android Ash in Alien, Father Vito Cornelius in The Fifth Element, and the hobbit Bilbo Baggins in the first and third films of the Lord of the Rings film trilogy.
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Ian Whittaker
Ian Whittaker is an American set decorator. He has won an Academy Award and has been nominated three more times in the category Best Art Direction.
Whittaker has won an Academy Award for Best Art Direction and has been nominated for three more:
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Isao Tomita
Isao Tomita (冨田 勲, Tomita Isao?, born April 22, 1932), often known simply as Tomita, is a Japanese music composer, regarded as one of the pioneers of electronic music and space music, and as one of the most famous producers of analog synthesizer arrangements. In addition to creating note-by-note realizations, Tomita made extensive use of the sound design capabilities of his instrument, using synthesizers to create new artificial sounds to accompany and enhance his electronic realizations of acoustic instruments. He also made effective use of analog music sequencers and featured futuristic science fiction themes, while laying the foundations for synth-pop music and trance-like rhythms. He also received four Grammy Award nominations for his album Snowflakes are Dancing in 1974.
Tomita was born in Tokyo and spent his early childhood with his father in China. After returning to Japan, he took private lessons in orchestration and composition while an art history student at Keio University, Tokyo. He graduated in 1955 and became a full-time composer for television, film and theatre. He composed the theme music for the Japanese Olympic gymnastics team for the 1956 Summer Olympics in Melbourne, Australia.
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Ivor Powell
Ivor Verdun Powell MBE (born 5 July 1916) is a Welsh former footballer who gained eight Welsh caps and later became a manager.
A wing half, he began his professional career with Queens Park Rangers in September 1937. His career was interrupted by World War II, though he returned to QPR to help them to the Third Division South title in 1947–48. He moved to Aston Villa for £17,500 in December 1948, and played 79 games in the First Division. He was appointed player-manager at Port Vale in July 1951, though was sacked after just four months. He was appointed Bradford City manager in 1952, but was again unsuccessful, and departed in February 1955. He did find success at Carlisle United following his appointment in 1960, leading the club to promotion out of the Fourth Division in 1961–62. He left the club in 1963, and later managed Bath City, before becoming a coach.
He was inducted to the Welsh Sports Hall of Fame in 2004 alongside snooker player Terry Griffiths and cricketer Tony Lewis. He also entered the Guinness Book of World Records as the oldest working football coach on his 90th birthday after 55 years as a coach. He retired on 26 May 2010, aged 93.
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Jack Clayton
Jack Clayton (1 March 1921 – 26 February 1995) was a British film director, who specialised in bringing literary works to the screen.
A native of East Sussex, Clayton started his career as a child actor on the 1929 film Dark Red Roses. He later worked for Alexander Korda's Denham Film Studios and rose from tea boy to assistant director to film editor.
While in service with the Royal Air Force during World War II, Clayton shot his first film, the documentary Naples is a Battlefield (1944), representing the problems in the reconstruction of Naples, the first great city liberated in World War II, ruined after Allied bombing and destruction caused by the retreating Nazis. After the war Clayton became an associate producer on many of Korda's films, then directed the Oscar-winning short The Bespoke Overcoat (1956) based on Wolf Mankowitz's theatrical version (1953) of Nikolai Gogol's short story The Overcoat (1842). In this film Gogol's story is re-located to a clothing warehouse in the East End of London and the ghostly protagonist is a poor Jew.
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James Cameron
James Francis Cameron (born August 16, 1954) is a Canadian film director, film producer, deep-sea explorer, screenwriter, visual artist and editor. His writing and directing work includes Piranha II: The Spawning (1981), The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), The Abyss (1989), Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991), True Lies (1994), Titanic (1997), Dark Angel (2000–02), and Avatar (2009). In the time between making Titanic and Avatar, Cameron spent several years creating many documentary films (specifically underwater documentaries) and co-developed the digital 3D Fusion Camera System. Described by a biographer as part-scientist and part-artist, Cameron has also contributed to underwater filming and remote vehicle technologies. On March 26, 2012, Cameron reached the bottom of the Mariana Trench, the deepest part of the ocean, in the Deepsea Challenger submersible.
He has been nominated for six Academy Awards overall and won three for Titanic. In total, Cameron's directorial efforts have grossed approximately US$2 billion in North America and US$6 billion worldwide. Without adjusting for inflation, Cameron's Titanic and Avatar are the two highest-grossing films of all time at $2.16 billion and $2.78 billion respectively. In March 2011 he was named Hollywood's top earner by Vanity Fair, with estimated 2010 earnings of $257 million.
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Jean Giraud
Jean Henri Gaston Giraud (8 May 1938 – 10 March 2012) was a French comics artist, working in the French tradition of bandes dessinées. Giraud earned worldwide fame, predominantly under the pseudonym Mœbius, and to a lesser extent Gir (used for the Blueberry series), the latter appearing mostly in the form of a boxed signature at the bottom of the artist's paintings. Esteemed by Federico Fellini, Stan Lee and Hayao Miyazaki among others, he received international acclaim. He has been described as the most influential bandes dessinées artist after Hergé.
Among his most famous works are the Western comic series Blueberry he co-created with writer Jean-Michel Charlier, one of the first Western anti-heroes to appear in comics. Under the pseudonym Moebius he created a wide range of science fiction and fantasy comics in a highly imaginative and surreal almost abstract style, the most famous of which are Arzach, the Airtight Garage of Jerry Cornelius, and The Incal. Blueberry was adapted for the screen in 2004 by French director Jan Kounen. In 1997, Moebius and cocreator Alejandro Jodorowsky sued Luc Besson for using The Incal as inspiration for his movie The Fifth Element, a lawsuit which they lost.
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Jerry Goldsmith
Jerrald King "Jerry" Goldsmith (February 10, 1929 – July 21, 2004) was an American composer and conductor most known for his work in film and television scoring.
He composed scores for such noteworthy films as The Sand Pebbles, Planet of the Apes, Patton, Chinatown, The Wind and the Lion, The Omen, The Boys from Brazil, Alien, Poltergeist, Gremlins, Hoosiers, Total Recall, Basic Instinct, Rudy, Air Force One, L.A. Confidential, Mulan, The Mummy, three Rambo films, and five Star Trek films. He was nominated for six Grammy Awards, nine Golden Globes, four BAFTAs, and seventeen Academy Awards. In 1977 he was awarded an Oscar for The Omen.
He collaborated with some of the most prolific directors in film history, including Robert Wise (The Sand Pebbles, Star Trek: The Motion Picture), Howard Hawks (Rio Lobo), Otto Preminger (In Harm's Way), Joe Dante (Gremlins, The 'Burbs, Small Soldiers), Roman Polanski (Chinatown), Ridley Scott (Alien, Legend), Steven Spielberg (Poltergeist, Twilight Zone: The Movie), and Paul Verhoeven (Total Recall, Basic Instinct). However, his most notable collaboration was arguably that with Franklin J. Schaffner, for whom Goldsmith scored such films as Planet of the Apes, Patton, Papillon, and The Boys from Brazil.
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John Carpenter
John Howard Carpenter (born January 16, 1948) is an American film director, screenwriter, producer, editor and composer. Although Carpenter has worked in numerous film genres in his four-decade career, his name is most commonly associated with horror and science fiction.
Carpenter was born in Carthage, New York, the son of Milton Jean (née Carter) and Howard Ralph Carpenter, a music professor. He and his family moved to Bowling Green, Kentucky in 1953. He was captivated by movies from an early age, particularly the westerns of Howard Hawks and John Ford, as well as 1950s low budget horror films, such as The Thing from Another World and high budget science fiction like Forbidden Planet and began filming horror shorts on 8 mm film even before entering high school. He attended Western Kentucky University where his father chaired the music department, then transferred to the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts in 1968, but later dropped out to make his first feature.
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John Hurt
John Vincent Hurt, CBE (born 22 January 1940) is an English actor and former voice actor. Among other honours, he has received two Academy Award nominations, a Golden Globe Award, and four BAFTA Awards, with the fourth being a Lifetime Achievement recognition.
Hurt is known for his leading roles as Joseph Merrick (billed as John Merrick) in The Elephant Man, Winston Smith in Nineteen Eighty-Four, Mr. Braddock in The Hit, Stephen Ward in Scandal, and Quentin Crisp in The Naked Civil Servant and An Englishman in New York. Recognizable for his distinctive rich voice, he has also enjoyed a successful voice acting career, starring in films such as Watership Down, The Lord of the Rings and Dogville, as well as BBC television series Merlin.
Hurt initially came to prominence for his role as Richard Rich in the 1966 film A Man for All Seasons, and has since appeared in such popular motion pictures as: Alien, Midnight Express, Rob Roy, V for Vendetta, Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull, the first, penultimate, and last Harry Potter films, the Hellboy film series, and Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Hurt is one of England's best-known, most prolific and sought-after actors, and has had a versatile film career spanning six decades. He is also known for his many Shakespearean roles. His character's final scene in Alien is consistently named as one of the most memorable in cinematic history.
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Jon Finch
Jon Finch (born 2 March 1941, Caterham, Surrey) is an English actor who has performed in many Shakespearean plays.
Finch's highest profile roles have been the lead in Roman Polanski's version of Shakespeare's Macbeth (1971), and as a down on his luck ex-RAF pilot falsely imprisoned for murder in Alfred Hitchcock's penultimate film Frenzy (1972). In the early phase of his career he also appeared in The Vampire Lovers (1970), Lady Caroline Lamb (1972), The Final Programme (1973),
At the end of the decade his roles in films included Death on the Nile (1978), and Breaking Glass (1980). Finch was cast as Kane in Ridley Scott's Alien (1979), but had to drop out because of his diabetes; John Hurt was cast in his place. Finch was the original choice for a role taken by Martin Shaw in the British television series The Professionals (Shaw previously had played Banquo to Finch's Macbeth in Polanski's film). He pulled out at last minute, claiming that he "couldn't possibly play a policeman".
During 1978-79, Finch played the role of Henry Bolingbroke in the BBC Television Shakespeare productions of Richard II, Henry IV, Part I and Henry IV, Part II, which also featured Derek Jacobi, John Gielgud, David Gwillim and Anthony Quayle in principal roles. In 1981, he played Luke the Evangelist in the television film Peter and Paul, which featured Robert Foxworth and Anthony Hopkins in the title roles. Occasional film roles include an appearance in Darklands (1997) and a small role as the Catholic Patriarch of Jerusalem in the Ridley Scott film Kingdom of Heaven (2005).
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Jon Spaihts
Jon Spaihts is an American screenwriter and author.
As a screenwriter Spaihts became known in the film industry as a "go-to-guy for space thrillers" when his science fiction romance Passengers was included on the 2007 Black List of unproduced high-value screenplays.Keanu Reeves had hired Spaihts to write the film after originally becoming attached to Spaihts' now abandoned science fiction script Shadow 19. After Reeves agreed to produce and star in Passengers, Spaihts was commissioned by Scott Free to write the next installments in the Alien saga, two prequel films to be directed by Ridley Scott, which eventually turned into the more autonomous story Prometheus, co-written by Damon Lindelof.
For New Regency Spaihts wrote the screenplay to the alien invasion thriller The Darkest Hour, based on a story by Leslie Bohem and M.T. Ahern. Spaiths worked on a film version of St. George and the Dragon for Sony Pictures, and as main screenwriter he was attached to a Disney film project called Children of Mars. He is currently engaged in a two-picture deal at Jerry Bruckheimer Films to adapt Ashley Wood's graphic novel World War Robot and write a space adventure film based on his own original pitch. Spaihts has also been commissioned to write the reboot of The Mummy franchise for Universal to be produced by Alex Kurtzman, Roberto Orci and Sean Daniel.
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Joseph Conrad
Joseph Conrad (born Józef Teodor Konrad Korzeniowski; 3 December 1857 Berdichev, Ukraine – 3 August 1924) was a Polish novelist who wrote in English, after settling in England.
Conrad is regarded as one of the great novelists in English, though he did not speak the language fluently until he was in his twenties (and then always with a marked Polish accent). He wrote stories and novels, predominantly with a nautical setting, that depict trials of the human spirit by the demands of duty and honour. Conrad was a master prose stylist who brought a distinctly non-English tragic sensibility into English literature. While some of his works have a strain of romanticism, he is viewed as a precursor of modernist literature. His narrative style and anti-heroic characters have influenced many authors.
Films have been adapted from or inspired by Conrad's Victory, Lord Jim, The Secret Agent, An Outcast of the Islands, The Rover, The Shadow Line, The Duel, Heart of Darkness, Nostromo, and Almayer's Folly.
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Leonard Maltin
Leonard Maltin (born December 18, 1950) is an American film critic and historian, author of several mainstream books on cinema, focusing on nostalgic, celebratory narratives.
Maltin was born in New York City, son of singer Jacqueline (née Gould), and Aaron Isaac Maltin, a lawyer and immigration judge. He is married to researcher and producer Alice Tlusty. He has one daughter Jessie, born in 1986, who works with him. Maltin is Jewish. Maltin grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, and graduated from Teaneck High School. He is a friend of film critic Roger Ebert.
Maltin began his writing career at age fifteen, writing for Classic Images and editing and publishing his own fanzine, Film Fan Monthly, dedicated to films from the golden age of Hollywood. After earning a journalism degree at New York University, Maltin went on to publish articles in a variety of film journals, newspapers, and magazines, including Variety and TV Guide.
As an author, Maltin is best known for Leonard Maltin's Movie Guide, (some editions titled as his ...Movie and Video Guide), a compendium of synopses and reviews that first appeared in September 1969 and has been annually updated since October 1987. (It was published under the title TV Movies until the 1990s, and in 2005 spawned a spin-off, Leonard Maltin's Classic Movie Guide, limited to films released in 1960 and earlier to allow the regular book to cover a larger number of more recent titles.) He has also written several other works, including Behind the Camera, a study of cinematography, The Whole Film Sourcebook, Leonard Maltin's Movie Encyclopedia, Our Gang: The Life and Times of the Little Rascals, and Of Mice and Magic: A History of American Animated Cartoons.
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Leslie Dilley
Leslie Dilley is a Welsh production designer and art director. He has won two Academy Awards and has been nominated for three more in the category Best Art Direction.
Dilley has won two Academy Awards for Best Art Direction and has been nominated for three more:
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Lionel Newman
Lionel Newman (January 4, 1916 - February 3, 1989) was an American conductor, pianist, and film and television composer. He was the brother of Alfred Newman and Emil Newman, uncle of Randy Newman, David Newman and Thomas Newman, and grandfather of Joey Newman.
Born in New Haven, Connecticut, Newman was one of ten children, the youngest of seven boys, born to Russian immigrant Jewish parents. While the family had little money, the children's mother, Luba, was a strong woman who encouraged them to achieve. Newman migrated to Hollywood where, at the age of 16, he began conducting for impresario Earl Carroll. This was where he met his future wife, Beverly Carroll, an Earl Carroll Vanity’s showgirl, and niece of the impresario. Newman had formal training in New York, and after moving to Los Angeles, he continued his studies with Joseph Achron and Mario Castelnuevo-Tedesco.
In the 1930s, Newman earned his stripes conducting national tours and working as the piano accompanist for Mae West. She used to scold him for holding his hands too high in the pit saying, "I'm the show, Newman, not you."
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Luigi Cozzi
Luigi Cozzi (born September 7, 1947) is an Italian movie director and screenwriter who directed mainly science fiction and horror films in the mid-1970s and throughout the 1980s. He was born in 1947 in Busto Arsizio, Italy.
Cozzi has been interested in film making since his teen years, producing a low budget science fiction film at age 21 called The Tunnel Under the World, which brought him to the attention of producer Dario Argento. Cozzi worked as an assistant director and screenwriter on a number of Argento's most famous movies, even directing a made-for-TV movie called The Neighbor for the "Doorway To Darkness" television series produced by Argento in 1973.
Cozzi's first professional film was a 1975 giallo he made called The Killer Must Kill Again after which he was hired to direct a number of bigger budget science fiction and fantasy films, such as Contamination, Starcrash, Hercules and Hercules 2. Cozzi worked with a lot of well-known genre actors such as Caroline Munro, Sybil Danning, Lou Ferrigno, Joe Spinnell, Klaus Kinski, and Brett Halsey.
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Mario Bava
Mario Bava (31 July 1914 – 25 April 1980) was an Italian director, screenwriter, special effects artist, and cinematographer remembered as one of the greatest names from the "golden age" of Italian horror films.
Mario Bava was born in Sanremo, Liguria, Italy. The son of Eugenio Bava, a sculptor who became a pioneer of special effects photography and subsequently one of the great cameramen of Italian silent pictures, Mario Bava's first ambition was to become a painter. Unable to turn out paintings at a profitable rate, he went into his father's business, working as an assistant to other Italian cinematographers like Massimo Terzano, while also offering assistance to his father who headed the special effects department at Benito Mussolini's film factory, the Istituto LUCE.
Bava became a cinematographer in his own right in 1939, shooting two short films with Roberto Rossellini. He made his feature debut in the early 1940s. Bava's camerawork was an instrumental factor in developing the screen personas of such stars of the period as Gina Lollobrigida, Steve Reeves and Aldo Fabrizi.
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Mary Selway
Mary Selway (14 March 1936, Norwich, England – 21 April 2004, London, England) was a British casting director.
Selway was born in Norwich in 1936 and attended the Italia Conti Academy of Theatre Arts in London. She worked as a model and as a PA at ITV before starting to work in casting, first under Miriam Brickman and then under Lindsay Anderson at the Royal Court Theatre in London. By the age of 34 she had started casting films, which she continued for the rest of her life. She had two daughters: the agent Kate Buckley and the actress Emma Buckley. Selway died of cancer in 2004.
Selway worked with a number of renowned directors over three decades, including Steven Spielberg, Roman Polanski, Clint Eastwood, John Boorman, Sydney Pollack, Robert Altman, Michael Apted, Nicolas Roeg, Fred Schepisi, Fred Zinnemann and Ridley Scott. Not only was she responsible for the casting of 104 films, such as the Oscar nominated Gosford Park (Best Picture, 2001), but she was also fascinated and delighted by the talent of the actors she cast. She gained a reputation for fairness, determination, charm, wisdom and irreverence. Selway was also a tireless champion of new acting talent, whom she discovered and nurtured. Unusually, she would stay in touch with the cast throughout the shooting process.
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Nostromo
Nostromo is a 1904 novel by Polish-born British novelist Joseph Conrad, set in the fictitious South American republic of "Costaguana". It was originally published serially in two volumes of T.P.'s Weekly.
In 1998, the Modern Library ranked Nostromo 47th on its list of the 100 best English-language novels of the 20th century. F. Scott Fitzgerald said, "I'd rather have written Nostromo than any other novel."
Conrad set his novel in the mining town of Sulaco, an imaginary port in the occidental region of the imaginary country of Costaguana. The book has more fully developed characters than any other of his novels, but two characters dominate the narrative: Señor Gould and the eponymous anti-hero, the "incorruptible" Nostromo.
Nostromo is set in the South American country of Costaguana (a fictional nation, though its geography as described in the book closely matches real-life Colombia). Costaguana has a long history of tyranny, revolution and warfare, but has recently experienced a period of stability under the dictator Ribiera.
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Percy Edwards
Percy Edwards MBE (1 June 1908, Ipswich, Suffolk - 7 June 1996, Hintlesham, Suffolk), was an English animal impersonator,ornithologist, and entertainer.
As a child, Edwards was fascinated by the wildlife he found in his local area, and by the age of 12 was accomplished enough at imitating many of them that this became his "party piece".
In 1930 he debuted on the BBC radio series Vaudeville, the start of a career that would last the best part of 60 years. During World War II, Edwards worked at Ransomes, Sims & Jefferies in Ipswich.
Edwards became a household name after his animal imitations in the radio shows Ray's a Laugh with Ted Ray; and playing Psyche the dog in the radio series A Life of Bliss. It was said that at the height of his career he could accurately imitate over 600 birds, as well as many other animals. Among other things, he provided the voices for the Whales in Orca (1977), the Reindeer in Santa Claus: The Movie (1985), sheep and bird sounds on Kate Bush's song The Dreaming, and the alien in the film of the same name. One of his last stage appearances was in the Grand Order of Water Rats centenary show at the London Palladium in 1989.
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Peter Yates
Peter James Yates (24 July 1929 – 9 January 2011) was an English director and producer. He was born in Aldershot, Hampshire.
The son of an army officer, he attended Charterhouse School as a boy, graduated from the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and worked for some years as an actor, director and stage manager. In the 1950s he started in the movie industry as a dubbing assistant and later an assistant director for Tony Richardson.
Summer Holiday (1963), his first film as director, was a "lightweight" vehicle for Cliff Richard. Yates had directed the original Royal Court production of N. F. Simpson's play One Way Pendulum and was chosen to make the film version released in 1964. Robbery (1967), a crime thriller, is a fictionalised version of the Great Train Robbery of 1963. This led to Bullitt (1968), of which Bruce Weber has written, "Mr. Yates’s reputation probably rests most securely on “Bullitt” (1968), his first American film – and indeed, on one particular scene, an extended car chase that instantly became a classic." After Bullitt, Yates would do action films, but would intermix them with comedy and drama films.
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Philip José Farmer
Philip José Farmer (January 26, 1918 – February 25, 2009) was an American author, principally known for his award-winning science fiction and fantasy novels and short stories.
Farmer is best known for his sequences of novels, especially the World of Tiers (1965–93) and Riverworld (1971–83) series. He is noted for the pioneering use of sexual and religious themes in his work, his fascination for, and reworking of, the lore of celebrated pulp heroes, and occasional tongue-in-cheek pseudonymous works written as if by fictional characters. Farmer often mixed real and classic fictional characters and worlds and real and fake authors as epitomized by his Wold Newton family group of books. These tie all classic fictional characters together as real people and blood relatives resulting from an alien conspiracy. Such works as The Other Log of Phileas Fogg (1973) and Doc Savage: His Apocalyptic Life (1973) are early examples of literary mashup.
Literary critic Leslie Fiedler compared Farmer to Ray Bradbury as both being "provincial American eccentrics" ... who... "strain at the classic limits of the [science fiction] form", but found Farmer distinctive in that he "manages to be at once naive and sophisticated in his odd blending of theology, pornography, and adventure".
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Raging Bull
Raging Bull is a 1980 American biographical sports drama film directed by Martin Scorsese, and adapted by Paul Schrader and Mardik Martin from Jake LaMotta's memoir Raging Bull: My Story. It stars Robert De Niro as Jake LaMotta, a middleweight boxer whose sadomasochistic rage, sexual jealousy, and animalistic appetite destroyed his relationship with his wife and family. Also featured in the film are Joe Pesci as Joey, La Motta's well-intentioned brother and manager who tries to help Jake battle his inner demons; and Cathy Moriarty as his abused wife. The film features supporting roles from Nicholas Colasanto, Theresa Saldana, and Frank Vincent.
Scorsese was initially reluctant to develop the project, though he eventually came to relate to La Motta's story. Schrader re-wrote Martin's first screenplay, and Scorsese and De Niro together made uncredited contributions thereafter. Pesci was an unknown actor prior to the film, as was Moriarty, who was suggested for her role by Pesci. During principal photography, each of the boxing scenes was choreographed for a specific visual style and De Niro gained approximately 60 pounds (27 kg) to portray La Motta in his early post-boxing years. Scorsese was exacting in the process of editing and mixing the film, expecting it to be his last major feature.
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Ridley Scott
Sir Ridley Scott (born 30 November, 1937) is an English film director and producer. His most famous films include The Duellists (1977), Alien (1979), Blade Runner (1982), Legend (1985), Black Rain (1989), Thelma & Louise (1991), Gladiator (2000), Hannibal (2001), Black Hawk Down (2001), Kingdom of Heaven (2005) American Gangster (2007), Body of Lies (2008), and Prometheus (2012).
Scott has been nominated for three Academy Awards for Directing, as well as Golden Globe and Emmy Awards. He was knighted in the 2003 New Year Honours. In 2011, Scott received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He is the older brother of film director Tony Scott.
Scott was born in South Shields, England, the son of Elizabeth and Colonel Francis Percy Scott. He was raised in an Army family, meaning that for most of his early life, his father — an officer in the Royal Engineers — was absent. Ridley's older brother, Frank, joined the Merchant Navy when he was still young and the pair had little contact. During this time the family moved around, living in (among other areas) Cumbria, Wales and Germany. He has a younger brother, Tony, also a film director. After the Second World War, the Scott family moved back to their native north-east England, eventually settling in Teesside (whose industrial landscape would later inspire similar scenes in Blade Runner). He enjoyed watching films, and his favourites include Lawrence of Arabia, Citizen Kane and Seven Samurai. Scott studied in Teesside from 1954 to 1958, at Grangefield Grammar School and later in West Hartlepool College of Art, graduating with a Diploma in Design.
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Robert Aldrich
Robert Aldrich (August 9, 1918 – December 5, 1983) was an American film director, writer and producer, notable for such films as Kiss Me Deadly (1955), The Big Knife (1955), What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? (1962), Hush… Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964), The Flight of the Phoenix (1965), The Dirty Dozen (1967), and The Longest Yard (1974).
Robert Burgess Aldrich was born in Cranston, the son of Lora Lawson and newspaper publisher Edward B. Aldrich. He was a grandson of U.S. Senator Nelson W. Aldrich and a cousin to Nelson Aldrich Rockefeller. He was educated at the Moses Brown School, Providence, Rhode Island, and studied economics at the University of Virginia. In 1941, he left university for a minor job at the RKO Radio Pictures, thus beginning his career as a cinéaste.
He quickly rose in film production as an assistant director, he worked with Jean Renoir, Abraham Polonsky, Joseph Losey and Charlie Chaplin, working with the latter as an assistant on Limelight. He became a television director in the 1950s, directing his first feature film, The Big Leaguer, in 1953. In that time, Aldrich was the rare American example of the auteur film maker[citation needed], depicting his liberal humanist thematic vision in many genres, in films such as Kiss Me Deadly (1955), today a film noir classic, The Big Knife (1955), a cinematic adaptation of Clifford Odets's play about Hollywood as a business, and Attack (1956), a World War II infantry combat film exploring how U.S. Army careerism determined who attacked and who ordered the attack. During the 1950s, Aldrich directed mostly action stories, including early films like Apache and Vera Cruz, both starred Burt Lancaster. In 1959 he was head of the jury at the 9th Berlin International Film Festival.
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Roger Corman
Roger William Corman (born April 5, 1926) is an Academy Award winning American film producer, director and actor. He has mostly worked on low-budget B movies. Some of Corman's work has an established critical reputation, such as his cycle of films adapted from the tales of Edgar Allan Poe, and in 2009 he won an Honorary Academy Award for his body of work. Corman has occasionally taken minor acting roles in such films as The Silence of the Lambs, The Godfather Part II, Apollo 13 and Philadelphia. A documentary about Roger Corman's life and career entitled Corman's World: Exploits of a Hollywood Rebel premiered at Sundance and Cannes Film Festivals in 2011, directed by Alex Stapleton. The film's TV rights were picked up by A&E IndieFilms after a well-received screening at Sundance.
Corman has been a mentor to young film directors including Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme, James Cameron, Curtis Hanson, John Sayles, and many others. He has also helped launch the careers of actors including Jack Nicholson, William Shatner, Peter Fonda, Dennis Hopper, Talia Shire and Robert De Niro.
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Roger Ebert
Roger Joseph Ebert ( /ˈiːbərt/; born June 18, 1942) is an American journalist, film critic and screenwriter. He is the first film critic to win a Pulitzer Prize for Criticism.
Ebert is known for his film review column (appearing in the Chicago Sun-Times since 1967, and later online) and for the television programs Sneak Previews, At the Movies with Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert, and Siskel and Ebert and The Movies, all of which he co-hosted for a combined 23 years with Gene Siskel. After Siskel's death in 1999, Ebert teamed with Richard Roeper for the television series Ebert & Roeper & the Movies, which began airing in 2000. Although his name remained in the title, Ebert did not appear on the show after mid-2006 after he suffered post-surgical complications related to thyroid cancer, leaving him unable to speak. Ebert ended his association with the show in July 2008, but in February 2009 he stated that he and Roeper would continue their work on a new show. Ebert's current show, Ebert Presents: At the Movies, premiered on January 21, 2011, with Ebert contributing a review voiced by someone else in a brief segment called "Roger's Office".
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Ron Cobb
Ron Cobb (born 1937) is an American cartoonist, artist, writer, film designer, and film director.
By the age of 18, with no formal training in graphic illustration, Cobb was working as an animation "inbetweener" artist for Disney Studios in Burbank, California. He progressed to becoming a breakdown artist on the animation feature Sleeping Beauty (1959). (This was the last Disney film to have cels inked by hand.)
After Sleeping Beauty was completed in 1957, Disney laid off Cobb and he spent the next three years in various jobs — mail carrier, assembler in a door factory, sign painter's assistant — until he was drafted in 1960 into the US Army. For the next two years he delivered classified documents around San Francisco, then, after signing up for an extra year to avoid assignment to the infantry, was sent to Vietnam in 1963 as a draughtsman for the Signal Corps. On his discharge, Cobb began freelancing as an artist. He began to contribute to the Los Angeles Free Press in 1965.
Edited and published by Art Kunkin, the Los Angeles Free Press was one of the first of the underground newspapers of the 1960s, noted for its radical politics. Cobb's editorial/political cartoons were a celebrated feature of the Freep, and appeared regularly throughout member newspapers of the Underground Press Syndicate. However, although he was regarded as one of the finest political cartoonists of the mid-1960s to early 1970s, Cobb made very little money from the cartoons and was always looking for work elsewhere.
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Ronald Shusett
Ronald Shusett is a motion picture screenwriter and producer, usually in the science fiction genre.
He wrote the original story for Alien (1979) with Dan O'Bannon.
In 1974, he was the first to option the short story, "We Can Remember It For You Wholesale", that became the basis of the film Total Recall.
Shusett is sometimes credited as Thilo T. Newman.
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Sigmund Freud
Sigmund Freud (German pronunciation: [ˈziːkmʊnt ˈfʁɔʏt]), born Sigismund Schlomo Freud (6 May 1856 – 23 September 1939), was an Austrian neurologist who founded the discipline of psychoanalysis. Freud's family and ancestry were Jewish. Freud always considered himself a Jew even though he rejected Judaism and had a critical view of religion. Freud's parents were poor, but ensured his education. Freud was an outstanding pupil in high school, and graduated the Matura with honors in 1873. Interested in philosophy as a student, Freud later turned away from it and became a neurological researcher into cerebral palsy, Aphasia and microscopic neuroanatomy.
Freud went on to develop theories about the unconscious mind and the mechanism of repression, and established the field of verbal psychotherapy by creating psychoanalysis, a clinical method for treating psychopathology through dialogue between a patient (or "analysand") and a psychoanalyst. Though psychoanalysis has declined as a therapeutic practice, it has helped inspire the development of many other forms of psychotherapy, some diverging from Freud's original ideas and approach. Freud postulated the existence of libido (an energy with which mental process and structures are invested), developed therapeutic techniques such as the use of free association (in which patients report their thoughts without reservation and make no attempt to concentrate while doing so), discovered the transference (the process by which patients displace on to their analysts feelings based on their experience of earlier figures in their lives) and established its central role in the analytic process, and proposed that dreams help to preserve sleep by representing as fulfilled wishes that would otherwise awake the dreamer. He was also a prolific essayist, drawing on psychoanalysis to contribute to the interpretation and critique of culture.
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Sigourney Weaver
Sigourney Weaver (born Susan Alexandra Weaver; October 8, 1949) is an American actress. She is known for her role of Ellen Ripley in the four Alien films: Alien, Aliens, Alien 3, and Alien Resurrection, for which she has received worldwide recognition.
Other notable roles include Dana Barrett in Ghostbusters and its sequel Ghostbusters II, Gorillas in the Mist: The Story of Dian Fossey, Working Girl, Death and the Maiden, The Ice Storm, Galaxy Quest, Snow Cake, Prayers for Bobby and Grace Augustine in Avatar.
Weaver has been nominated for three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards (one win), two Emmy Awards, six Saturn Awards (two wins) and six Golden Globe Awards, winning two in 1988 for Gorillas in the Mist and Working Girl, becoming the first person ever to have won two acting Golden Globe Awards in the same year. She was also nominated for a Drama Desk Award and a Tony Award.
Her 1986 Academy Award nomination for Aliens is considered as a landmark in the recognition of science fiction, action, and horror genres, as well as a major step in challenging the gender role in cinema. Weaver progressively received notoriety for her numerous contributions to the science fiction film history (including minor roles in successful works such as Futurama, WALL-E and Paul) and gained the nickname of "The Sci-Fi Queen".
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Terry Rawlings
Terry Rawlings (born 1933 in London, England) is a British film editor and sound editor with several BAFTA nominations and one Academy Award nomination. His credits as a sound editor date from 1962 – 1977, after which he is credited primarily as a film editor.
A founding member of the Guild of British Film and Television Editors, Rawlings has also been elected to membership in the American Cinema Editors, and received the organization's 2006 Career Achievement Award. He was nominated for an Oscar for his work on Chariots of Fire and for BAFTAs for both Alien and Blade Runner .
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Tom Skerritt
Thomas Roy "Tom" Skerritt (born August 25, 1933) is an American actor who has appeared in over 40 films and more than 200 television episodes since 1962. He is best known for his roles in MASH, Alien, Top Gun, A River Runs Through It, and the TV series Picket Fences.
Skerritt was born in Detroit, Michigan, the son of Helen, a homemaker, and Roy Skerritt, a businessman. A 1951 graduate of Detroit's Mackenzie High School, Skerritt attended Wayne State University and the University of California at Los Angeles.
Skerritt made his film debut in War Hunt, produced by Terry Sanders and released in 1962. Skerritt's notable film appearances include MASH (1970), Harold and Maude (credited as "M. Borman", 1971), Big Bad Mama, Cheech & Chong's Up In Smoke (1978), Ice Castles (1978), as Captain A. J. Dallas in Alien (1979), as a would-be astronaut in Contact (1997) and SpaceCamp (1986), and in Top Gun (1986) as Commander Mike "Viper" Metcalf. In 1988, he starred with Nancy Allen and Lara Flynn Boyle in Poltergeist III.
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Veronica Cartwright
Veronica A. Cartwright (born 20 April 1949) is an English-born American actress who has worked mainly in American film and television. As a child actress she appeared in supporting roles in The Children's Hour and The Birds. She is perhaps best known for her roles in the science fiction films Invasion of the Body Snatchers and Alien, for which she won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress.
Cartwright was born in Bristol and grew up in Toronto and Los Angeles. Her career as a child actress began in 1958, with a role in In Love and War. Among her early appearances was a semi-regular part in the television series Leave It to Beaver (as Beaver's classmate Violet Rutherford) and an episode of The Twilight Zone "I Sing the Body Electric" (1962). She guest starred twice in 1963 in NBC's medical drama about psychiatry, The Eleventh Hour, in the episodes "The Silence of Good Men" and "My Name is Judith, I'm Lost, You See". Cartwright appeared in the films, The Children's Hour (1961) and Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds (1963) which were both highly successful. She was cast as daughter Jemima Boone in the first two seasons of NBC's Daniel Boone from 1964 until 1966, with co-stars Fess Parker, Patricia Blair, Darby Hinton and Ed Ames.
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Vincent Canby
Vincent Canby (July 27, 1924 – October 15, 2000) was an American film critic who became the chief film critic for The New York Times in 1969 and reviewed more than 1000 films during his tenure there.
Canby was born in Chicago, Illinois, the son of Katharine Anne (née Vincent) and Lloyd Canby. He attended a boarding school with the novelist William Styron, and the two became friends. He introduced Styron to the works of E.B. White and Ernest Hemingway, and the pair hitchhiked from their Christ Church, Virginia boarding school to Richmond, Virginia to buy Hemingway's For Whom the Bell Tolls. After war service in the Pacific he attended the Dartmouth College and then was employed as a film critic by Variety for six years.
Canby was an enthusiastic supporter of many filmmakers, notably Woody Allen, who credited Canby's rave review of Take The Money and Run as a crucial point in his career. He was also heavily critical of some otherwise acclaimed films, such as Rocky, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Jaws, Patton, Night of the Living Dead, Once Upon a Time in America, Chinatown, After Hours, Blazing Saddles, A Christmas Story, Witness, Mask, The Natural, Rain Man, The Exorcist, One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest,Deliverance, The Godfather Part II and Alien. In the early 1990s, Canby switched his attention from film to theatre; he was named the chief theatre critic in 1994.
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Yaphet Kotto
Yaphet Frederick Kotto (born November 15, 1939) is an American actor, known for numerous film roles (including the science-fiction/horror film Alien, the science-fiction/action film The Running Man and as a James Bond villain in Live and Let Die), and his starring role in the NBC television series Homicide: Life on the Street (1993-2000). He is also a music producer who is a part of Legendary Inc., founded by Young L of The Pack.
Kotto was born in New York City, the son of Gladys Marie, a nurse and army officer, and Avraham Kotto (originally named Njoki Manga Bell), a businessman from Cameroon. In his autobiography titled Royalty, Kotto writes that his father was "the crown prince of Cameroon". Kotto stated that he found out that his family was royal in adult life while studying his family's lineage, and also stated that he is a descendant of Queen Victoria. Kotto's father, who immigrated to the U.S. in the 1920s, was, according to Kotto, an observant Jew who spoke Hebrew, and Kotto's mother reportedly converted to Judaism before marrying his father. Kotto also stated that his great-grandfather King Alexander Bell ruled the Douala region of Cameroon in the late 19th century and was also a practicing Jew. Kotto has said that his paternal family originated from Israel and migrated to Egypt and then Cameroon, and have been African Jews for many generations. His claim of being a descendent of Queen Victoria has been denied by the Buckingham Palace press office.
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Alien (1979)
Actors
- Tom Skerritt
- Sigourney Weaver
- Veronica Cartwright
- Harry Dean Stanton
- John Hurt
- Yaphet Kotto
- Bolaji Badejo
- Helen Horton
- Eddie Powell
- Ian Holm
Director
- Alien - Pennywise
- Alien - Soulja Boy
- Alien - Erasure
- Alien - Third Day
- Alien - Adam Ant
- Alien - Tankard
- Alien - Adam & The Ants
- Alien - Jefferson Starship
- Alien - Tokio Hotel
- Alien - Delirious
- Alien - Bush
- Alien - Oblivion Dust
- Alien - Nerina Pallot
- Alien - Lamb
- Alien - Orange 9mm
- Alien - Toploader
- Alien - Chris Whitley
- Alien - Your Favorite Martian
- Alien - Cast
- Alien - Thriving Ivory
- Alien - Atlanta Rhythm Section
- Alien - Arco
- Alien - Dead Letter Circus
- Alien - Revolution Smile
- Alien - The Revolution Smile
- Alien - One Fine Day
- Alien - The High Court
- Alien - J-sol
Everyday convince myself of everything I can
and can't believe abused confused
Everyday you feel every crime just stare up at the sky
and wonder why afraid deranged
Hold on to your promise you can use it for a crutch stand by
while all your dreams are trampled in the dust
Leave now before your slick machines begin to rust
Last chance farewell among us
Everyday you get a little bit older and everything gets hard you wonder
why afraid deranged
everyday you feel every crime an endless shocking show
on the parade abused confused
Where are the Aliens?
I came out the water
Go and place your order
Fifty thirteen …
Never gave a fuck, I don't never move sloppy
I'm getting money, must be Illuminati
Cash on deck bits
Niggers get the fuck back
Niggers we, roll bitch
Sweaty shit is sinking in
You niggers ain't listening
I'm towing that chopper
Every dime I got is glistening
Came out the ocean bitch
I swear that I'm immaculate
Alien territory
Call my …
Snatch a bitch
Call my
Slap a bitch
Call your sleazy
Yeah that be me neither
I don't give a fuck is easy
Call on young Jesus
Red and blue diamond
Like the police siren
Money gagging staging you niggers …
Niggers on fire
And this SOD
Pick up all your TV up and your 3D and I move it
Niggers talking shit, I'm an alien
Came out the water in that space-ship
Fuck what you heard
Fuck what you heard
Bitch I'm an alien
Bitch I'm an alien
Came out the water in that space-ship
Came out the water in that space-ship
Fuck what you heard
Fuck what you heard
I swear when I ride back
Nigger talk that shit
Soulja Boy dressed in Camel
Stand a clip up on me
I might shoot you in your face
All riding …
I'm an alien
Bitch suck my dick
And she came and her face was Australian
Never gave a fuck, I'm a kingpin
I sound twenty five fuck two ten
I'm living in a morrow
Twenty twelve yellow balls
Make that bitch swallow
… nigger fuck what you getting
SOB that be the team
Fuck what he taking
Fuck what he talking
Fuck what he got
Pussy ass bitch
Fuck around get shot
Anything that you own I'm a get it too
Anything that you want we can get into
…I don't think these niggers hear me out
Louis Easy I don't think these niggers hear me dog
Cuts to the quick
Pure emotion, a trip
No word of a lie
Pressed to your lips
We collide, slowly twist
Ardent and lithe
Seeps into the ground
Kisses the earth and I am found
Love's young dream could be alien
Strange ways how we fly
Tuning low like a radio
Whispering goodbye
Just so it seems
Softly potent, serene
Vacant and shy
You are everywhere
Under my skin and in my hair
Love's young dream could be alien
Strange ways how we fly
Tuning low like a radio
Whispering goodbye
Seeps into the ground
Kisses the earth and I am found
Love's young dream could be alien
Strange ways how we fly
Tuning low like a radio
Whispering goodbye
Love's young dream could be alien
Strange ways how we fly
Tuning low like a radio
Whispering goodbye
Love's young dream could be alien
Strange ways how we fly
Tuning low like a radio
Whispering goodbye
Love's young dream
Could be serene
I'm what you're looking for
No need to search anymore
I'm in need of your saving
You can give me hope
Rescue my wretched soul
You are the one
I am praying
I am just like the alien
the fatherless and the widow
Keep your watch over me
Sustain the life in me
Frustrate the ways of every wicked man
Let me inside your home
Father defend my cause
Plead for my case and innocence
Just like the alien
I'm a stranger in a strange land
Just like the Fatherless
I'm in need of someone to take my hand
Just like the widow
I need you right now to understand
Great when you call us
Thank you for staying with us
We missed you all so desperatley
But don't blink or you'll miss me
On a street like this as it were
From the thick of Jerusalem
Is what makes you love old England
The roots of freedom are here
Say what you will about the Alien
Just dig in and start with the sky
He's welcome and ever may be so
And then somhow everyhting seems
To come out right
So let's hear it for
Let's hear it for
Let's hear it for
The Alien
You're such a killer
But oh just you trade that in
For tea and Jammie Dodgers
Down the prospect and sing
On a street like this as it were
From the thick of Jerusalem
Is what makes you love old England
The roots of freedom are here
Say what you will about the Alien
Just dig in and start with the sky
He's welcome and ever may be so
And then somhow everyhting seems
To come out right
So let's hear it for
Let's hear it for
Let's hear it for
It come to earth three years ago from deep in space
A brilliant U.F.O.! I could not believe it
Refuge! I let it stay with me a while
Stupid! Now I with that he would go
(Chorus) Alien, Alien - he's a drunkard
Alien, Alien - he ate my food
Consumed my chow 'til nothing's left every week
Are you happy now? I cannot avoid it!
Nosey! He snoops around my private stuff
Porno! And sold my stack of magazines
(Chorus)
(Solo: Andy)
He broke into my well stocked fridge and drank my beer
I can't get really drunk tonight, the stores are closed
Leave now! You drive me nuts, don't want you here
Oh no! He locked the keys in his spacecraft
Great when you call us
Thank you for staying with us
We missed you all so desperately
But don't blink or you'll miss me
On a street like this as it were
From the thick of Jerusalem
Is what makes you love old England
The roots of freedom are here
Say what you will about the alien
Just dig in and start with the sky
He is welcome and ever might be so
And then somehow everything seems to come out right
So let's hear it for, let's hear it for
Let's hear it for the alien
You're such a killer
Oh, just you trade that in
For tea and Jammie Dodgers
Down the Prospect and sing
On a street like this as it were
From the thick of Jerusalem
Is what makes you love old England
The roots of freedom are here
Say what you will about the alien
Just dig in and start with the sky
He is welcome and ever might be so
And then somehow everything seems to come out right
So let's hear it for, let's hear it for
Let's hear it for the alien
On a street like this as it were
From the thick of Jerusalem
Is what makes you love old England
The roots of freedom are here
Say what you will about the alien
Just dig in and start with the sky
He is welcome and ever might be so
And then somehow everything seems to come out right
So let's hear it for, let's hear it for
Let's hear it for the alien
Let's hear it for, let's hear it for
Let's hear it for the alien
Let's hear it, let's hear it for
Are you an alien
Are you from this earth
Would you care to tell me
Details of birth
Did you just emerge from thin air
Can you even tell Me
Are you really there
Jet age dreams
From days gone by
The circle in the forest
Where they danced beneth the sky
...beneath the sky...
Beneath the sky
Do you know my thoughts
Can you read my mind
Would you dare to tell me
What it is you find
Come on now tell me what you find
What lays hidden in my mind
I can see through you
I can hear you too
I can feel you touch my mind
Did they paint your face
In ancient times
Were they talking 'bout you
In celtic rhymes
Can I just reach out
Pull back the shroud
Would you let me hold you
Would it be allowed
Are you the legend
Did they call you seer
Would you let me hold you
Would you disappear...
I feel lost in myself, there's an alien in me
Who are you? Who am I? Blood is all I see
The words in the mirror are makin' me shiver
Save me with your love tonight
Come and bring me back to life
(Alien)
I lay down on the edge, feel my whole life on rewind
See your face in the crowd a million times
I'm drownin', I'm fallin', I hear myself callin'
Save me with your love tonight
Come and bring me back to life
Save me with your light tonight
You can make the darkness shine
Come and kill the dream gone bad
Alien to love
Come and wake me from the dead
Alien to love, to love
Need your love
Save me with your love tonight
Come and bring me back to life
Save me with your light tonight
You can make the darkness shine
Come and kill the dream gone bad
Alien to love
(Alien)
Come and wake me from the dead
I feel a stranger in this land.
Where every step the gods command.
I breathe.
And children wander fatherless,
Through fields that spent their happiness.
I grieve.
Take them away to a higher place.
Give me a day 'cos I'm losing (face)
And I've never felt so alien.
Yes I've never felt so alien.
I feel danger every day,
With every stone we throw away.
Careful it's falling,
And who will sing a different song?
I hope to God it won't be long.
Believe.
Show me a way to a higher place.
Why is there sunshine on my guilty face?
Yes You are brighter than the sun.
Only Your love can make us one.
Jesus You're brighter than the sun.
well the satellite comes and goes
we give each other all we know
in silence we still talk
by the light of the stereo waltz
and will you rain down
in your cinematic love truck
I want to hold you like nothing's going to stop us
she come to take me away
its all that I needed
I don't breathe another lover
flicker on a T.V. screen
everything's more than it seems
the mighty backward fall
stare at the lights on the wall
I swear to this
she felt like velvet
second blond child she meant it
she come to take me away
its all that I needed
I don't breathe another lover
I'm an alien
you're an alien
it's a beautiful rain
beautiful rain
She has just touched heaven
But acts as though it's broke
She can't help it
She can't mend it
Alien...Alien...
I stole the colors off her
And changed myself just like her
They don't see me
They don't hear me
Alien...Alien...
How am I ever gonna make them understand
No one ever knows the things I do
I could never live here in my own world
Now I've gotta try and make it through
You will understand the things I do
Show me how to get into your world
Alien...Alien...
How am I ever gonna make them understand
No one ever knows the things I do
I could never live here in my own world
Now I've gotta try and make it through
You will understand the things I do
Show me how to get into your world
I'm calling out for you now
I'm calling out to your world
I'm calling out for you now
I'm calling out to your world
Alien come out for me now
Call my name and I can leave this place
Alien come out
Brother won't you look at the sky
There's something burning so bright
And what it is I can't see
But I think it's coming at me.
Did you get here in a rocket
And did you journey through space?
Did your mother never scold you
Oh when she looked at your face?
Do you know where you come from?
Because you look out of place
In a town where only the rain comes down
You fell down to earth
Like and alien, like and alien, like an alien.
Funny 'cause I feel quite at ease
I think you come here in peace,
We're universal in smiles
You know they see it for miles
Did you get here in a rocket
And did you journey through space?
Did you mother never scold you
Oh when she looked at your face?
Do you know where you come from?
Because you look out of place
In a town where only the rain comes down
You fell down to earth
Like and alien, like an alien, like and alien.
This was a body, now it's a home
For you, my little alien
I feel you moving, it's oh, so strange
Do you like the music?
Am I a happy home?
What's it like in there?
I'm a happy home
I hope it's cosy in there
If home's where the heart is that's where you are
My heart is right there
So long I've waited to be quite so occupied
Mysterious being by you
And I'm a happy home?
What's it like in there?
Yeah, I'm a happy home
I hope it's cosy in there
This was a body, now it's a home
For you, my little alien
I feel you moving, it's oh, so strange
Do you like the music?
And I'm a happy home?
What's it like in there?
Yeah, I'm a happy home
I hope it's cosy in there
And I'm a happy home?
What's it like in there?
Yeah, I'm a happy home
I transmit with speed,
I'm an acid caress
Like a viper tightening deaf but quiet
Now there's some of us I'd like to forget
When the rains die down and the world is perfect
If my nerves just freeze in response
I might let my reason drown them back to distress
My relationship with God is a mess
and there's some of us I'd like to forget
Still
Nameless
Faceless
Makes Us
Worthless
One more time we rid ourselves
Keep in mind that anger swells
Watch me crawl out of my skin
Trust myself to stay within
Depreciate by not moving
Stuck inside this casing I just
Stare
If I let you breathe can I charge you for breath
and if I succeed will you then seem impressed
Check my life's pulse it's a state of unrest
There's some of us I'd like to forget
and if heavens free do you need a ticket,
will they forget my soul has bathed with the wicked.
In times of want and pain I fair best
there's some of us I'd like to forget
Alien
Alien
I drove from nowhere to relive my past
Feel like an outsider feel the same now
It's funny how to get so much further
When you feel like an alien
Thank God I was never a thinker
I would have never have found my gap
I'm starting to see where I'm going
But I feel like an alien
Someone was calling me
And I think that it was you
Someone was calling me
And I think that it was you
Someone was calling me
And I think that it was him
Someone was calling me yeah
One step forward two steps back
Remembering time on my back
But down the chill it reels what a crack
And I feel like an alien yeah
Someone was calling me
And I think that it was you
Someone was calling me
And I think that it was you
Someone was calling me
And I think that it was him
Someone was calling me yeah
I feel like an alien
I feel like an alien yeah
I feel like an alien
I feel like an alien yeah
Everybody knows
I can tell how you fill your clothes
I can see it at the edge of your smile
So strange about the dormant desire
But everybody knows the alien
I can tell how you try to pretend
You can see now, I got a foreign friend
Everybody knows the alien
Everybody knows
I can feel it as the tension grows
I can see it at the edge of your eyes
So strange how it lights up the sky
But everybody knows the alien
I can tell how you try to pretend
You can see now, I got a foreign friend
Everybody knows the alien
Everybody knows the alien
I can tell how you try to pretend
You can see now, I got a foreign friend
Everybody knows the alien
Everyone come out
Got shades for the shadows of doubt
Get blind, it's most too clear
Could get killed by beauty and fear
Porcelain face on a steel device
Mind of glass and a mask of ice
Someone is a million years from home
Someone is a stranger and is never alone
Because everybody knows the alien
I can tell how you try to pretend
You can see now, I got a foreign friend
Everybody knows the alien
Everybody knows the alien
I can tell how you try to pretend
You can see now, I got a foreign friend
Everybody knows the alien
But everybody knows the alien
But everybody knows the alien
Have you ever felt left out of the group, excluded?
Given the boot when you knew you should have been a
shoo-in?
Like some ancient Druid was pursuant to ruin your life
With a curse but worse, he brought his whole damn crew
And now it’s high noon and you’re a target to shoot at
This school’s a battlefield, no wonder you’re truant!
They always look at you and they boo at what you’re
doing
And you go off like a bomb at the Olympics in Munich.
Nah, you’re just an extraterrestrial
Less than respectable
You’ll never get to get the girl
You’re just a jester at the festival
I guess it’s acceptable
To peg your head with vegetables
And kick you in the testicles
And best of all let you know that you’re a filthy dog
And you’ll never be best in show.
So why the abuse?
‘Cause all a bully needs is a fucking excuse!
(Chorus)
Planet Earth I need a friend
‘Cause I’m on the outside looking in
I’m an Alien
I’m just an Alien
Feeling lost but never found
‘Til I found myself being pushed around
I’m an Alien
Yes, I’m an Alien.
I’ma be honest, it gets better I promise
So don’t let them ground you down to a pound of sawdust
Stay on the stage the longest ’til the gong hits
And everybody comments on their fondness
Of your polish and your overall knowledge
Remain calmest and abolish your modesty
‘Cause honestly you got to be positive
You’re a prodigy!
You show the world that you’re not to mess with
It’s a broken home that makes these bastards aggressive
You can expect to get rejected
Neglected, stripped naked, and tested ’til they reckon
You feel terrible because nothing is comparable
Violence ain’t the answer but the pain is unbearable
You’re nice and jaded from being isolated
Now you coast through life feeling twice as hated.
So why the abuse?
‘Cause all a bully needs is a fucking excuse!
(Chorus)
Axel on the drums!
Run!
Well,
(Chorus)
No Ohhh!
I’m an Alien
Yes, I’m an Alien
Take the knowledge away
Suck the breath from the clay
Break the bone to the ground
Leave the soul where it's found
Lead the soul where it's found
Through the passage of time
One day soon to arrive
Silver bird in the sky
Leave this world all behind
Taking over the world
They're taking over our world
Looking out from inside
When you see what you find
Out of sight out of mind
Meet the seed of mankind
Taking over the world
They're taking over our world
Looking out from inside
When you see what you find
Out of sight out of mind
Meet the seed of mankind
Higher and higher
Spiraling through the sky
Vertically rising
Through a white wall of space
It's further and further
Pushing on through the clouds
Perfect response
To falling from grace
For me to look
For you are found
Need to speak
I hear the sound
On the street
No need to be here
no card to clock in
and i can swear somebody's watchin'
where i go and where ive been.
Brother i can see moses
and all the things he did for you
Oh brother ive been hearing voices
that im probably not supposed to.
How will i walk steaddy
if the ground should come alive
And tell me how will i be ready
for the world another time
Woah alien!
You'll be just fine,
Youve always been beautiful
to me...
Woah alien!
Pay us no mind,
We havent the light to hold
to see...
Am i another slave now
To the screamin in my head
Or is it a little strange now,
how the moment's gone and fled
Oh brother I gotta tell ya,
that something here is wrong,
Oh brother i gotta tell ya
This place ain't a-what i thought
Woah alien!
You'll be just fine,
Youve always been beautiful
to me...
Woah alien!
Pay us no mind,
We havent the light to hold
to see...
I know i ain't gonna build forever
(no i ain't gonna build forever)
And i know you feel the same
(and i know you feel the same)
You'll see it when your older
(you'll see it when your older)
No love is not a ga-ame anymore
so thank god we're together.
Woah alien.
You'll be just fine...fine...
yea-ah!
Woah alien!
You'll be just fine,
Youve always been beautiful
to me...
Woah alien!
Pay us no mind,
We havent the light to hold
The sun just went behind a cloud again
Down crowded streets he walks alone
He's a stranger out of place, a number not a face
And all day long, all day long
He's feelin' like an alien
Feelin' like he don't belong
Have mercy, cried the alien
Help him find his way back home
The feelin' that he feels he can't explain
Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, they're all the same
He's lost and all alone, a heart without a home
Standin' like a statue in the rain
He's feelin' like an alien
Feelin' like he don't belong
Have mercy, cried the alien
Help him find his way back home
Now, now and then we all are aliens
Feelin' like we don't belong
Have mercy, cried the alien
Help him find his way back home
Feelin' like an alien
He's feelin' like he don't belong
Have mercy, cried the alien
every hour, every day
isn't nature denied?
in a world where it rains
you're the sun in the sky
but i can't bear to see you
'cos i can't bear the pain
and i can't heal the wounds
'cos i still can't explain
why i feel like an alien
not part of the human race
when my heart wants to burst
at the sight of your face
i feel like i'm suffering
from a beautiful disease
when your sad pretty smile
brings me down to my knees
such a simple thing
it should be such a simple thing
you can call me confused
all that i can confess
is i can't come to terms
settle for something less
will i feel this emotion
till the day that i die?
and go to my grave
still wondering why
Something in the way that I
Or the way.....?
Something in the shape and sound of your way
Will I fall to decide or will I grow to the meaning
here
Or will I keep open eyes
I can still feel the beating of...us
Cos I keep searching and all I ever find is a way
things could be
Don't stay
Cos I leave burns here for the mind
Something in the way that I
Or the way.....?
Something in the shape and sound of the way....
Somehow emotion feels stronger than I've felt for so
long
I've grown here in this moment
I feel closer than I've felt for so long why?
So I keep searching and all I ever find is a way things
could be
Don't stay
Cos I leave burns here when all I ever find is a way
things should be
Don't stay
For I get burnt here when
All I ever find is a moment of a word
The colder I become
Because I'm holding on inside
And I don't feel you there
Out there
I see you there
Out there
Why not come closer?
So we don't fit so we pretend so
You're so cool with your white lie
I miss you wasting
All of my time
Soon as I am able to tell
All of you to go to hell
Everything will be the right way
You must be some kind of an alien
And I fell
Association built on what's cool
I'm leaving as soon as
I become the rule
Soon as I am able to tell
All of you to go to hell
Everything will be the right way
You must be some kind of an alien
And I fell
You must be some kind of an alien
And I fell
You must be some kind of an alien
And I fell
You must be some kind of an alien
You're so cool with your white lie.
I miss you wasting all of my time.
As soon as I am able to tell.
All of you to go to hell.
Everything will be the right way.
You must be some kind of an alien.
And I felt.
Association built on what's cool.
I'm leaving as soon as I become the rule.
As soon as I am able to tell.
All of you to go to hell.
Everything will be the right way.
You must be some kind of an alien.
And I fell for it.
they're so spoiled and living deep down in their holes
demanding more with deep profanity
never satisfied, grabbing greedy souls
can't understand how they replace sanity
and I feel so distant
I'm an alien in oblivion
I'm an alien not welcome anymore
in an area of histeria
must I play my role or can I ask for more
and of course it's allowed to make "little mistakes"
life is just all about experience
the less you know the less you have to fake
the skill lies in just ignoring it all
and I feel so distant
I'm an alien in oblivion
I'm an alien not welcome anymore
in an area of histeria
must I play my role or can I ask for more
I'm an alien just an alien in oblivion
why do I feel so alienated
is it all about cheating fate
indifference is lying in wait
Well, I've got a hundred thousand reasons that I thought you would be
the one that took me by the hands and said you're happier with me.
And now, a problem rears its head and you wanna give up on me?
Oh, everything will be alright, wait and see.
I've got a laundry list of girls I could call up to see,
but they can't hold a flame to you because you're perfect for me.
I've got a hole inside my heart, oh, and I smile as it bleeds.
Well, the day that I give up on you is the day I admit defeat.
Won't it make you sad to know that this will be all we had?
Won't it make me mad to know that this is the end?
Won't it make you glad, when they're calling me crazy?
Where's the love we had?
You said the last boyfriend you had went all crazy
and said that he would kill himself for you.
Well, there's something wrong with his head.
And now you label me a liar, well guess what? I am.
But the dead can't make you quiver like I did inside of you in your bed.
And if I ever see you out with him, just say goodbye.
I'll smash his pretty face up and I'll watch him die.
Won't it make you sad to know that this will be all we had?
Won't it make me mad to know that this is the end?
Won't it make you glad, when they're calling me crazy?
Where's the love we had?
You were the one.
You let me take my guard down and now, you're only tearing my heart out.
You tore it apart, you made me feel like I'm already out.
Back to the walls, I'm gonna fall, no one can hurt me and I'll stand tall.
Back to my wall, I had it all when you were mine.
(Verse)
I Wanna Know Who You Are
'Cos You Crash Landed, Crash Landed
Sitting Outside & Your
Spaceship Is Damaged, It's Damaged,
You Say You Gotta Get Back Home
Back To Your Planet,
I Don't Know Who You Are,
But You Gotta Find Your Way Back To The Stars.
Remember when you told me (told me)
You was an Alien
Remember when you told me (told me)
You was an Alien
(Chorus)
I don't know who you are
But you gotta find a way back to the stars
I don't know who you are
But you gotta find a way back to the stars
Because You're Just A Lost Alien
Because You're Just A Lost Alien
Because You'rre Just A Lost Alien
And I'm Never Gonna Leave Your Side,
(Verse)
I don't know who you are
But you crash landed (crash landed)
Swerving in and out of these lanes
Tryna escape them (escape them)
I'm running outta gas & a red-light
With no options, I don't know who you are
But I'm never gonna leave you on your own
Remember when you told me (told me)
You was an Alien
Remember when you told me (told me)
You was an Alien
(Chorus)
I don't know who you are
But you gotta find a way back to the stars
I don't know who you are
But you gotta find a way back to the stars
Because Your Just A Lost Alien
Because Your Just A Lost Alien
Because Your Just A Lost Alien
And I'm Never Gonna Leave Your Side x2
(RAP/Bridge)
Look, Pretty Face Long Hair
There's no way that you're from here
Got my mind spinning like a ride
At a fun fair, to be so beautiful is unfair,
Why you think you got them other girls
Wanting to be you, and you got them boys
Love strucked when they see you, any where
You're gonna be that's where they wanna be too,
I call them other girls glasses because they're see-through
Beautiful you're on another level (WOW)
You make a young man want to settle down
Get romantic and get the petals out,
Take you on cloud 9 and never let you down,
You need to go back to your planet,
I hope you don't though,
I'm sitting in the car listening to don't go
And All I know is that you came from far
I'm tryna figure out who you are.
(Chorus)
I don't know who you are
But you gotta find a way back to the stars
I don't know who you are
But you gotta find a way back to the stars
Because Your Just A Lost Alien
Because Your Just A Lost Alien
Because Your Just A Lost Alien
RELEASE
ALBUMS
- Dark Eyes
- Don't Go Away
- Oh Sarah
- Fallen Eagle
- Lethal Woman
- Wild One
- Don't Fight It
- Riding With the Wind
- Are You Ready
- Fire (The Game)
- Sherylee
- Everything I Never Said
- Frankie the Prankster
- Blind Summit
- Time Timed
- Slowfader
- Honeycreeper
- The Pleasure of Leisure
- The Return of Rat Phink
- Progress Is Progress
- A Mans Eye
- A Killer in the Family
- Hold On Move On
- Give It Up
- Desperate Dreams
- Angel Eyes
- In The Dead Of Night
- Intro 'Midnight Jam'
- Turn On The Radio
- Strangers In a No-Mans Land
- Don't Turn Me Away
- Neon Lights
- Hello How Are You
- Brave New Love
- Tears Don't Put Out the Fire
- Go Easy
- I've Been Waiting
- Jaimie Remember
- Feel My Love
- Only One Woman
- Wings of Fire
- Dying by the Golden Rule
- Touch My Fire
- Dreamer
- Mirror
- Take Me to Heaven
- Number One
- A World Full of Dreams
- Standin' Alone
- Just a Man
- My Love
- A Little Ain't Enough
- Strong Like a Warrior
- Song of a Renegade
- Let's Go Dancin'
- Open Your Eyes
- Only One Woman
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Alien (1979) Trailer
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:11
- Updated: 16 Jan 2013
Trailer for the 1979 movie Alien
http://wn.com/Alien_1979_Trailer
Parker & Lambert's Death. Alien 1979
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:21
- Updated: 15 Jan 2013
Classic horror moment
http://wn.com/Parker_Lambert's_Death_Alien_1979
Alien Trailer (1979)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:56
- Updated: 16 Jan 2013
This is from one of my favourite films
http://wn.com/Alien_Trailer_1979
ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 1/5
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:01
- Updated: 15 Jan 2013
ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 1/5 ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 1/5 FILM MOVIE DOCUMENTARY BEHIND THE SCENES ART WORK ALIEN 1979 1986 HR RIDLEY SCOTT HR GIGER JAMES CAMERON SIGOURNEY WEAVER ELLEN RIPLEY CPL HICKS WEYLAN WEYLAND-YUTANI BIG CHAP XENO XENOMORPH UFO DERELICT SPACESHIP SPACECRAFT THE GREYS 2012 MAYAN CALENDAR END OF THE WORLD PROMETHEUS SPACE JOCKEY
http://wn.com/ALIEN1979_DOCUMENTARY_ALIEN_MAKERS_III_HR_GIGER_Part_1_5
ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 1/5 ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 1/5 FILM MOVIE DOCUMENTARY BEHIND THE SCENES ART WORK ALIEN 1979 1986 HR RIDLEY SCOTT HR GIGER JAMES CAMERON SIGOURNEY WEAVER ELLEN RIPLEY CPL HICKS WEYLAN WEYLAND-YUTANI BIG CHAP XENO XENOMORPH UFO DERELICT SPACESHIP SPACECRAFT THE GREYS 2012 MAYAN CALENDAR END OF THE WORLD PROMETHEUS SPACE JOCKEY
- published: 08 Apr 2012
- views: 17864
- author: SkemeKOS
Alien (1979 film review)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 9:57
- Updated: 07 Jan 2013
Since Prometheus will arrive in theatres in the next few days, I thought I'd take the time to discuss the original 1979 Alien film (which Prometheus is the prequel to). Alien is an outstanding science-fiction horror film with incredible suspense, deeply chilling imagery and a solid narrative, and is let down only by a slightly flat performance by Sigourney Weaver, the uneven production values and a couple of unintentionally funny moments. (The use of copyrighted material in this video is permitted by fair use laws for the purposes of criticism and review.) Cheers!
http://wn.com/Alien_1979_film_review
Since Prometheus will arrive in theatres in the next few days, I thought I'd take the time to discuss the original 1979 Alien film (which Prometheus is the prequel to). Alien is an outstanding science-fiction horror film with incredible suspense, deeply chilling imagery and a solid narrative, and is let down only by a slightly flat performance by Sigourney Weaver, the uneven production values and a couple of unintentionally funny moments. (The use of copyrighted material in this video is permitted by fair use laws for the purposes of criticism and review.) Cheers!
- published: 04 Jun 2012
- views: 8230
- author: QUANTUMJOKER
Alien 1979
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:45
- Updated: 10 Jan 2013
Format: Teaser Trailer Released: May 1979 Director: Ridley Scott Distributor: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
http://wn.com/Alien_1979
Format: Teaser Trailer Released: May 1979 Director: Ridley Scott Distributor: Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation
- published: 19 Feb 2008
- views: 288473
- author: DIOTD2008
CineMassacre's Monster Madness #21 Alien (1979)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:08
- Updated: 12 Jan 2013
Monster Madness T-Shirts now available! www.cinemassacrestore.com
http://wn.com/CineMassacre's_Monster_Madness_21_Alien_1979
Monster Madness T-Shirts now available! www.cinemassacrestore.com
- published: 21 Oct 2007
- views: 382356
- author: Cinemassacre
ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 3/5
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:01
- Updated: 10 Jan 2013
ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 3/5 ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 3/5 FILM MOVIE DOCUMENTARY BEHIND THE SCENES ART WORK ALIEN 1979 1986 HR RIDLEY SCOTT HR GIGER JAMES CAMERON SIGOURNEY WEAVER ELLEN RIPLEY CPL HICKS WEYLAN WEYLAND-YUTANI BIG CHAP XENO XENOMORPH UFO DERELICT SPACESHIP SPACECRAFT THE GREYS 2012 MAYAN CALENDAR END OF THE WORLD PROMETHEUS SPACE JOCKEY
http://wn.com/ALIEN1979_DOCUMENTARY_ALIEN_MAKERS_III_HR_GIGER_Part_3_5
ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 3/5 ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 3/5 FILM MOVIE DOCUMENTARY BEHIND THE SCENES ART WORK ALIEN 1979 1986 HR RIDLEY SCOTT HR GIGER JAMES CAMERON SIGOURNEY WEAVER ELLEN RIPLEY CPL HICKS WEYLAN WEYLAND-YUTANI BIG CHAP XENO XENOMORPH UFO DERELICT SPACESHIP SPACECRAFT THE GREYS 2012 MAYAN CALENDAR END OF THE WORLD PROMETHEUS SPACE JOCKEY
- published: 08 Apr 2012
- views: 14450
- author: SkemeKOS
Alien trailer
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:51
- Updated: 15 Jan 2013
Alien trailer
http://wn.com/Alien_trailer
A Normal Day At The Nostromo - Alien (1979) Re-Cut
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:53
- Updated: 09 Jan 2013
Kind of an "Airplane" version of Alien, one of my all time fav. Done just for fun, don't shoot.
http://wn.com/A_Normal_Day_At_The_Nostromo_Alien_1979_Re-Cut
Kind of an "Airplane" version of Alien, one of my all time fav. Done just for fun, don't shoot.
- published: 02 Feb 2011
- views: 9801
- author: vanheineken
ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 4/5
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 10:01
- Updated: 10 Jan 2013
ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 4/5 ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 4/5 FILM MOVIE DOCUMENTARY BEHIND THE SCENES ART WORK ALIEN 1979 1986 HR RIDLEY SCOTT HR GIGER JAMES CAMERON SIGOURNEY WEAVER ELLEN RIPLEY CPL HICKS WEYLAN WEYLAND-YUTANI BIG CHAP XENO XENOMORPH UFO DERELICT SPACESHIP SPACECRAFT THE GREYS 2012 MAYAN CALENDAR END OF THE WORLD PROMETHEUS SPACE JOCKEY
http://wn.com/ALIEN1979_DOCUMENTARY_ALIEN_MAKERS_III_HR_GIGER_Part_4_5
ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 4/5 ALIEN(1979) DOCUMENTARY - ALIEN MAKERS III: HR GIGER - Part 4/5 FILM MOVIE DOCUMENTARY BEHIND THE SCENES ART WORK ALIEN 1979 1986 HR RIDLEY SCOTT HR GIGER JAMES CAMERON SIGOURNEY WEAVER ELLEN RIPLEY CPL HICKS WEYLAN WEYLAND-YUTANI BIG CHAP XENO XENOMORPH UFO DERELICT SPACESHIP SPACECRAFT THE GREYS 2012 MAYAN CALENDAR END OF THE WORLD PROMETHEUS SPACE JOCKEY
- published: 08 Apr 2012
- views: 4096
- author: SkemeKOS
ALIEN 1979 SPACE JOCKEY
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:23
- Updated: 31 Dec 2012
http://wn.com/ALIEN_1979_SPACE_JOCKEY
Alien 1979 Trailer (HD)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:58
- Updated: 10 Jan 2013
Alien 1979 Movie Trailer
http://wn.com/Alien_1979_Trailer_HD
Alien 1979 TV Trailer
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 0:31
- Updated: 12 Jul 2012
Aired June 17, 1979
http://wn.com/Alien_1979_TV_Trailer
ALIEN 1979 KENNER VINTAGE
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:05
- Updated: 10 Jan 2013
1979 ALIEN 18" Action Figure by KENNER TOY COMPANY Designed by HR GIGER Trivia : Besides the fact that the ALIEN was pulled off the shelves in toy stores because parents complained that the toy was too scary and made their kids cry, Kenner Toy Company had gone as far as to actually destroy the ALIEN molds so no more ALIENs could be made. I heard this information about "Kenner destroying the molds" back in 1991. A loose ALIEN complete (no box) depending on it's condition, can go for $75.- to $195.- Should have the clear dome, inner (2 parts) jaws, and the back "fifth" spike. The box alone, complete, can go for $150.- up to $250.- Condition of course make a difference, should have the red insert, thin clear plastic window and if possible, the straps to tie the KENNER ALIEN down. The double sided b/w POSTER that comes with the KENNER ALIEN alone can average a price of $15.- to $25.- A MINT 1979 KENNER ALIEN in a mint sealed box with poster, ( never played with or taken out of the box), no creases, no tears or wear on the box can go for $600.- to $ 1800.- (super rare condition) depending on the demand for it and the time of year. An ALIEN missing clear dome, back spike, inner jaws tends to sell for $40.- to $60.- (mostly in the $45.- range) Excerpts at the end of this video are from the movie ALIEN Video by Martin BLACKBAG for 70sToys tags: Prometheus Ridley Scott
http://wn.com/ALIEN_1979_KENNER_VINTAGE
1979 ALIEN 18" Action Figure by KENNER TOY COMPANY Designed by HR GIGER Trivia : Besides the fact that the ALIEN was pulled off the shelves in toy stores because parents complained that the toy was too scary and made their kids cry, Kenner Toy Company had gone as far as to actually destroy the ALIEN molds so no more ALIENs could be made. I heard this information about "Kenner destroying the molds" back in 1991. A loose ALIEN complete (no box) depending on it's condition, can go for $75.- to $195.- Should have the clear dome, inner (2 parts) jaws, and the back "fifth" spike. The box alone, complete, can go for $150.- up to $250.- Condition of course make a difference, should have the red insert, thin clear plastic window and if possible, the straps to tie the KENNER ALIEN down. The double sided b/w POSTER that comes with the KENNER ALIEN alone can average a price of $15.- to $25.- A MINT 1979 KENNER ALIEN in a mint sealed box with poster, ( never played with or taken out of the box), no creases, no tears or wear on the box can go for $600.- to $ 1800.- (super rare condition) depending on the demand for it and the time of year. An ALIEN missing clear dome, back spike, inner jaws tends to sell for $40.- to $60.- (mostly in the $45.- range) Excerpts at the end of this video are from the movie ALIEN Video by Martin BLACKBAG for 70sToys tags: Prometheus Ridley Scott
- published: 09 Dec 2009
- views: 98201
- author: 70sToys
Alien (1979) - HD Trailer
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 1:58
- Updated: 15 Jan 2013
Alien - Starring Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, and Ian Holm Release Date: May 25, 1979
http://wn.com/Alien_1979_HD_Trailer
Alien - Starring Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, John Hurt, and Ian Holm Release Date: May 25, 1979
- published: 13 Dec 2010
- views: 6983
- author: TheSciFiSpot
Japan - Alien - 1979
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:02
- Updated: 06 Jan 2013
Mick Karn is a monster. *FORYOUR LISTENING ENJOYMENT ONLY* What is the openVAULT you ask? It's quite simple. Music that for lack of a better analogy, has been locked away from the general public. What has happened to the musical landscape is sickening. Far too many artists go largely unnoticed. We are here to change that. To drive the point home, this will not be some "best of" list aka Rolling Stone. No "Stairway", no "Walrus", just music that should be heard. Here at openVAULT you're going to be forced off the beaten path more often than not. It'll be good for you, trust us. Every song you will hear is from our private collection, so please NO copying, downloading or reproducing these videos in any form for this is strictly prohibited. You know as in illegal, a no-no. As stated before these tunes are FOR YOUR LISTENING ENJOYMENT ONLY! We won't sell, trade, or give up any mp3s, so if you're here for that purpose please step aside, you're blocking the view of others.
http://wn.com/Japan_Alien_1979
Mick Karn is a monster. *FORYOUR LISTENING ENJOYMENT ONLY* What is the openVAULT you ask? It's quite simple. Music that for lack of a better analogy, has been locked away from the general public. What has happened to the musical landscape is sickening. Far too many artists go largely unnoticed. We are here to change that. To drive the point home, this will not be some "best of" list aka Rolling Stone. No "Stairway", no "Walrus", just music that should be heard. Here at openVAULT you're going to be forced off the beaten path more often than not. It'll be good for you, trust us. Every song you will hear is from our private collection, so please NO copying, downloading or reproducing these videos in any form for this is strictly prohibited. You know as in illegal, a no-no. As stated before these tunes are FOR YOUR LISTENING ENJOYMENT ONLY! We won't sell, trade, or give up any mp3s, so if you're here for that purpose please step aside, you're blocking the view of others.
- published: 18 Oct 2008
- views: 59811
- author: OpenVault
Ed Edd n' Eddy Fake Trailer- Alien (1979)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:05
- Updated: 13 Jan 2013
Enjoy!!!! NOTE: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING USED IN THIS VIDEO
http://wn.com/Ed_Edd_n'_Eddy_Fake_Trailer_Alien_1979
Enjoy!!!! NOTE: I DO NOT OWN ANYTHING USED IN THIS VIDEO
- published: 20 Mar 2011
- views: 6407
- author: kapat12724
Alien (1979) young , sexy and sweet Ellen Ripley - legendary moment of the film
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 2:44
- Updated: 09 Jan 2013
Alien (1979) young , sexy and sweet Ellen Ripley/Sigourney Weaver - legendary moment of the film ### the archives SpyMoments ###
http://wn.com/Alien_1979_young_,_sexy_and_sweet_Ellen_Ripley_legendary_moment_of_the_film
Alien (1979) young , sexy and sweet Ellen Ripley/Sigourney Weaver - legendary moment of the film ### the archives SpyMoments ###
- published: 27 Jul 2012
- views: 5051
- author: SpyMomentsBack
Alien (1979) - Scary Movie Night w/ Jill Kill
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 7:58
- Updated: 10 Jan 2013
Chris Stuckmann and fellow horror movie buff Jill Kill discuss what makes the original Alien (1979) a classic. Jill's Channel: www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/Alien_1979_Scary_Movie_Night_w_Jill_Kill
Chris Stuckmann and fellow horror movie buff Jill Kill discuss what makes the original Alien (1979) a classic. Jill's Channel: www.youtube.com
- published: 11 Jan 2012
- views: 9092
- author: ChrisStuckmann
MÖRBID REPORTS,episode:2,alien 1979/prometheus ,derelict ship model diorama
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 6:46
- Updated: 12 Jan 2013
Mörbid reports video reviews are presented with bad english subtitles and spoken in hobo bavarian german language ;-) ;-) please dont take it to serious!!! i hope you can forgive me some translation mistakes ;-) so please enjoy my work!!!! if you like my videos please check out my other episodes. greetings Mörbid Flö
http://wn.com/MÖRBID_REPORTS,episode2,alien_1979_prometheus_,derelict_ship_model_diorama
Mörbid reports video reviews are presented with bad english subtitles and spoken in hobo bavarian german language ;-) ;-) please dont take it to serious!!! i hope you can forgive me some translation mistakes ;-) so please enjoy my work!!!! if you like my videos please check out my other episodes. greetings Mörbid Flö
- published: 15 May 2012
- views: 1021
- author: Mörbid Reports
Alien Film Series Review: ALIEN (1979)
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 5:14
- Updated: 14 Jan 2013
NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED, PROTECTED UNDER FAIR USE. A review of Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). Alien Review: www.youtube.com Aliens Review: www.youtube.com Alien 3 Review: www.youtube.com Alien Resurrection Review: www.youtube.com
http://wn.com/Alien_Film_Series_Review_ALIEN_1979
NO COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT INTENDED, PROTECTED UNDER FAIR USE. A review of Ridley Scott's Alien (1979). Alien Review: www.youtube.com Aliens Review: www.youtube.com Alien 3 Review: www.youtube.com Alien Resurrection Review: www.youtube.com
- published: 04 Nov 2010
- views: 27020
- author: hithisisderek237
Alien (1979) Review & Analysis: Alien Review Series
- Order: Reorder
- Duration: 29:35
- Updated: 07 Jan 2013
Join us on the forums www.areashiftybun.com Review and analysis of Alien
http://wn.com/Alien_1979_Review_Analysis_Alien_Review_Series
Join us on the forums www.areashiftybun.com Review and analysis of Alien
- published: 15 Jul 2011
- views: 1809
- author: HorrorOfMike
photo: AP / Adj Nicolas-Nelson Richard, ECPAD
14 Jan 2013
Bamako/Paris - French fighter jets pounded Islamist rebel strongholds deep in northern Mali on Sunday as Paris poured more troops into the capital, Bamako, awaiting a West African force to dislodge al-Qaeda-linked insurgents from the country’s north ... Defence Minister Jean-Yves le Drian said France’s intervention on Friday prevented the advancing rebels from seizing Bamako and vowed air strikes would continue ... – ... Doubt....(size: 6.6Kb)
photo: Creative Commons / INABA Tomoaki
16 Jan 2013
YURI KAGEYAMA. AP Business Writers= TOKYO (AP) — Boeing Co.'s 787 planes were grounded for safety checks Wednesday by two major Japanese airlines after one was forced to make an emergency landing in the latest blow for the new jet ... The 787, known as the Dreamliner, is Boeing's newest and most technologically advanced jet, and the company is counting heavily on its success ... The grounding was done voluntarily by the airlines ... The U.S ... U.S....(size: 11.1Kb)
photo: AP / BP
16 Jan 2013
IN what could be the first spillover from France's intervention in Mali, Islamist militants attacked and occupied a natural gas complex partly operated by energy company BP in southern Algeria. Two foreigners were killed and dozens of others, including Americans, were taken hostage ... It said it was holding 41 foreigners, including seven Americans ... Recommended Coverage. Al-Qaeda seize hostages in Algeria. End of sidebar ... . ....(size: 7.4Kb)
photo: AP / Carolyn Kaster
16 Jan 2013
JULIE PACE. Associated Press= WASHINGTON (AP) — Braced for a fight, President Barack Obama on Wednesday unveiled the most sweeping proposals for curbing gun violence in two decades, pressing a reluctant Congress to pass universal background checks and bans on military-style assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines like the ones used in the Newtown, Conn., school shooting ... "And Congress must act soon." ... World news....(size: 9.2Kb)
photo: AP / Kevin Frayer
14 Jan 2013
Allahabad. Hundreds of thousands of Hindu pilgrims led by naked, ash-covered holy men streamed into the sacred river Ganges on Monday at the start of the world's biggest religious festival. The Kumbh Mela in the Indian town of Allahabad will see up to 100 million worshippers gather over the next 55 days to take a ritual bath in the holy waters, believed to cleanse sins and bestow blessings ... "I am ecstatic ... Agence France-Presse ....(size: 4.2Kb)
Entertainment Weekly
17 Jan 2013
And then there’s this week’s episode (embedded below), in which NPH finds himself abducted by (puppet) aliens and begs them to give him a good probing ... There’s no gentle way to ask about the alien probe sequence ... the details of being probed by aliens ... And as I said that, it sounds like I was talking about [alien] abduction again....(size: 3.6Kb)
E! Online
17 Jan 2013
Rollingstone
17 Jan 2013
It's Alien Town! ... Well, Grace seems okay with the setup, inasmuch as it gives her plenty of time to obsessively draw the aliens over and over again ... I hate to even drop the bomb this early, as so much of the episode is a slow, interesting exploration of Kit, Alma and Grace's life together as the only people who know about the existence of aliens....(size: 7.6Kb)
noodls
17 Jan 2013
(Source ... Imperial Valley, Calif. - El Centro Sector Border Patrol agents' recent arrests have led to the successful conviction and sentencing of eight illegal aliens with prior convictions for other crime(s) ... The illegal aliens, many of which have extensive criminal histories, were presented for prosecution on federal criminal charges ... The illegal aliens will be deported to their country of origin after serving their prison sentences....(size: 5.9Kb)
The Inquisitr
17 Jan 2013
In the Walker home, there are pictures on the wall of Kit, Alma, Grace, and the two alien children, a seemingly happy blended family ... Alma is disturbed that Grace seems to be growing more obsessed with aliens, and Kit says she’s trying to work through what they did to her in her own way ... Noise starts, and it sounds like the aliens are paying the family a visit....(size: 13.8Kb)
Buffalo News
17 Jan 2013
Luckily one student was on guard, and reported the posters to the Freedom From Religion Foundation, complaining that he felt “uncomfortable and alienated” by these religious references ... Quotes from Ronald Reagan decrying some apocalyptic future for a godless America are a little out of place in a science classroom, and could legitimately offend and alienate students of the atheist, pantheist or Epicurean variety....(size: 2.1Kb)
Zap2it
17 Jan 2013
Asylum" had a tough act to follow ... The segment didn't do much to advance the mysterious alien storyline (here's hoping for some real answers in the finale, and not just loose ends), but established a power struggle between Grace and Alma and their different ways of coping with their alien encounters ... Alma views the aliens as cruel, while Grace believes they're benevolent beings who are attracted to Kit's "incredible empathy." ... Jude ... ....(size: 5.0Kb)
Yahoo Daily News
17 Jan 2013
Could the potency and mystery of ancient healing tradition provide medicine for the illnesses and alienation of modern culture? Healing Camp at the Blue Deer Center provides a rare connection to this potency and mystery, opening an unprecedented doorway to deep healing ... Could the potency and mystery of ancient healing tradition provide medicine for the illnesses and alienation of modern culture? ... Buffy Aakaash. Blue Deer Center ... ....(size: 2.8Kb)
The Examiner
17 Jan 2013
Innocence tells the story of Cypher Raige telling his son Kitai a bedtime story of how humanity came under assault by an enigmatic and ruthless alien species that wound up forcing the disparate elements of mankind that populated Nova Prime (the New Earth) to band together in order to protect their new homeworld ... up dealing with) the alien attack....(size: 3.3Kb)
The Examiner
17 Jan 2013
Sequels. whether in literature or film, they have among the most disappointing ratios of expectation to satisfaction. The rewards for success are great, but it is so easy to do them wrong. And film music is no exception. The first ingredient to success is the composer of the original film ... Alien stands as a rare exception ... But the greatest achievement by a composer different than the original is perhaps Aliens vs. Predator. Requiem ... ....(size: 3.7Kb)
NZ Herald
17 Jan 2013
She's kept a bit of a low profile since embracing motherhood, but Megan Fox is making up for the radio silence with a dose of her trademark, eyebrow-raising candour in a new interview ... More on that later), Bigfoot, leprechauns, and compares Lindsay Lohan to Marilyn Monroe (not in a good way) ... "I feel like I willed it be gone ... Ouch ... She also admits to believing in aliens, leprechauns and the Loch Ness monster ... "I believe in aliens ... * Watch....(size: 6.7Kb)
IMDb
17 Jan 2013
Lance Henriksen, veteran actor from Aliens, Close Encounters, and Pumpkinhead fame, will be making an appearance in NBC’s ......(size: 0.7Kb)
| Alien | |
|---|---|
| File:Alien movie poster.jpg Theatrical release poster by Bill Gold |
|
| Directed by | Ridley Scott |
| Produced by | Gordon Carroll David Giler Walter Hill |
| Screenplay by | Dan O'Bannon David Giler (uncredited) Walter Hill (uncredited) |
| Story by | Dan O'Bannon Ronald Shusett |
| Starring | Tom Skerritt Sigourney Weaver Veronica Cartwright Harry Dean Stanton John Hurt Ian Holm Yaphet Kotto |
| Music by | Jerry Goldsmith |
| Cinematography | Derek Vanlint |
| Editing by | Terry Rawlings |
| Studio | Brandywine Productions |
| Distributed by | 20th Century Fox |
| Release date(s) |
|
| Running time | 117 minutes[1] |
| Country | United States United Kingdom |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $11 million[2][3] |
| Box office | $104,931,801 |
Alien is a 1979 science fiction horror film directed by Ridley Scott and starring Tom Skerritt, Sigourney Weaver, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt, Ian Holm and Yaphet Kotto. The film's title refers to its primary antagonist: a highly aggressive extraterrestrial creature that stalks and kills the crew of a spaceship. Dan O'Bannon wrote the screenplay from a story by him and Ronald Shusett, drawing influence from previous works of science fiction and horror. The film was produced through Brandywine Productions and distributed by 20th Century Fox, with producers David Giler and Walter Hill making significant revisions and additions to the script. The titular Alien and its accompanying elements were designed by Swiss surrealist artist H. R. Giger, while concept artists Ron Cobb and Chris Foss designed the human aspects of the film.
Alien garnered both critical acclaim and box office success, receiving an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects,[4][5] Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Direction for Scott, and Best Supporting Actress for Cartwright,[6] and a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation, along with numerous other award nominations.[7] It has remained highly praised in subsequent decades, being inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress in 2002 for historical preservation as a film which is "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".[7][8][9] In 2008 it was ranked as the seventh-best film in the science fiction genre by the American Film Institute, and as the thirty-third greatest movie of all time by Empire magazine.[10][11]
The success of Alien spawned a media franchise of novels, comic books, video games, and toys, as well as three sequel and two prequel films. It also launched Weaver's acting career by providing her with her first lead role, and the story of her character Ripley's encounters with the Alien creatures became the thematic thread that ran through the sequels Aliens (1986), Alien 3 (1992), and Alien Resurrection (1997).[12] The subsequent prequels Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) abandoned this theme in favor of a crossover with the Predator franchise.
Contents |
Plot[link]
The commercial towing spaceship Nostromo is on a return trip from Thedus to Earth, hauling a refinery and twenty million tons of mineral ore, and carrying its seven-member crew in stasis. Upon receiving a transmission of unknown origin from a nearby planetoid, the ship's computer awakens the crew.[13] Acting on standing orders from their corporate employers, the crew detaches the Nostromo from the refinery and lands on the planetoid, resulting in some damage to the ship. Captain Dallas (Tom Skerritt), Executive Officer Kane (John Hurt), and Navigator Lambert (Veronica Cartwright) set out to investigate the signal's source while Warrant Officer Ripley (Sigourney Weaver), Science Officer Ash (Ian Holm), and Engineers Brett (Harry Dean Stanton) and Parker (Yaphet Kotto) stay behind to monitor their progress and make repairs.
Dallas, Kane, and Lambert discover that the signal is coming from a derelict alien spacecraft. Inside it they find the remains of a large alien creature whose ribs appear to have been exploded outward from the inside. Meanwhile, the Nostromo's computer partially deciphers the signal transmission, which Ripley determines to be some type of warning. Kane discovers a vast chamber containing numerous eggs, one of which releases a creature that attaches itself to his face. Dallas and Lambert carry the unconscious Kane back to the Nostromo, where Ash allows them inside against Ripley's orders to follow the ship's quarantine protocol. They unsuccessfully attempt to remove the creature from Kane's face, discovering that its blood is an extremely corrosive acid. Eventually the creature detaches on its own and is found dead. With the ship repaired, the crew resume their trip back to Earth.
Kane awakens seemingly unharmed, but during a meal before re-entering stasis he begins to choke and convulse until an alien creature bursts from his chest, killing him and escaping into the ship. Lacking conventional weapons, the crew attempt to locate and capture the creature by fashioning motion trackers, electric prods, and flamethrowers. Brett follows the crew's cat into a large room where the now-fully-grown Alien attacks him and disappears with his body into the ship's air shafts. Dallas enters the shafts intending to force the Alien into an airlock where it can be expelled into space, but it ambushes him. Lambert implores the remaining crew members to escape in the ship's shuttle, but Ripley, now in command, explains that the shuttle will not support four people.
Accessing the ship's computer, Ripley discovers that Ash has been ordered to return the Alien to the Nostromo's corporate employers even at the expense of the crew's lives. Ash attacks her, but Parker intervenes and decapitates him with a blow from a fire extinguisher, revealing Ash to be an android. Before Parker incinerates him, Ash predicts that the other crew members will not survive. The remaining three crew members plan to arm the Nostromo's self-destruct mechanism and escape in the shuttle, but Parker and Lambert are killed by the Alien while gathering the necessary supplies. Ripley initiates the self-destruct sequence and heads for the shuttle with the cat, but finds the Alien blocking her way. She unsuccessfully attempts to abort the self-destruct, then returns to find the Alien gone and narrowly escapes in the shuttle as the Nostromo explodes.
As she prepares to enter stasis, Ripley discovers that the Alien is aboard the shuttle. She puts on a space suit and opens the hatch, causing explosive decompression which forces the Alien to the open doorway. She shoots it with a grappling gun which propels it out, but the gun is yanked from her hands and catches in the closing door, tethering the Alien to the shuttle. It attempts to crawl into one of the engines, but Ripley activates them and blasts the Alien into space. She then puts herself and the cat into stasis for the return trip to Earth.
Origins[link]
While studying cinema at the University of Southern California, Dan O'Bannon had made a science fiction comedy film with director John Carpenter and concept artist Ron Cobb entitled Dark Star.[14] The film included an alien which had been created using a spray-painted beach ball, and the experience left O'Bannon "really wanting to do an alien that looked real."[14][15] A few years later he began working on a similar story that would focus more on horror: "I knew I wanted to do a scary movie on a spaceship with a small number of astronauts", he later recalled, "Dark Star as a horror movie instead of a comedy."[14] Ronald Shusett, meanwhile, was working on an early version of what would eventually become Total Recall.[14][15] Impressed by Dark Star, he contacted O'Bannon and the two agreed to collaborate on their projects, choosing to work on O'Bannon's film first as they believed it would be less costly to produce.[14][15] O'Bannon had written twenty-nine pages of a script entitled Memory comprising what would become the film's opening scenes: a crew of astronauts awaken to find that their voyage has been interrupted because they are receiving a signal from a mysterious planetoid. They investigate and their ship breaks down on the surface.[15][16] He did not yet, however, have a clear idea as to what the alien antagonist of the story would be.[14]
O'Bannon soon accepted an offer to work on a film adaptation of Dune, a project which took him to Paris for six months.[14][17] Though the project ultimately fell through, it introduced him to several artists whose works gave him ideas for his science fiction story including Chris Foss, H. R. Giger, and Jean "Moebius" Giraud.[16] O'Bannon was impressed by Foss' covers for science fiction books, while he found Giger's work "disturbing":[14] "His paintings had a profound effect on me. I had never seen anything that was quite as horrible and at the same time as beautiful as his work. And so I ended up writing a script about a Giger monster."[16] After the Dune project collapsed O'Bannon returned to Los Angeles to live with Shusett and the two revived his Memory script. Shusett suggested that O'Bannon use one of his other film ideas, about gremlins infiltrating a B-17 bomber during World War II, and set it on the spaceship as the second half of the story.[16][17] The working title of the project was now Star Beast, but O'Bannon disliked this and changed it to Alien after noting the number of times that the word appeared in the script. He and Shusett liked the new title's simplicity and its double meaning as both a noun and adjective.[14][16][18] Shusett came up with the idea that one of the crew members could be implanted with an alien embryo that would later burst out of him, feeling that this was an interesting plot device by which the alien creature could get aboard the ship.[14][17]
In writing the script, O'Bannon drew inspiration from many previous works of science fiction and horror. He later stated that "I didn't steal Alien from anybody. I stole it from everybody!"[19] The Thing from Another World (1951) inspired the idea of professional men being pursued by a deadly alien creature through a claustrophobic environment.[19] Forbidden Planet (1956) gave O'Bannon the idea of a ship being warned not to land, and then the crew being killed one by one by a mysterious creature when they defy the warning.[19] Planet of the Vampires (1965) contains a scene in which the heroes discover a giant alien skeleton; this influenced the Nostromo crew's discovery of the alien creature in the derelict spacecraft.[19] O'Bannon has also noted the influence of "Junkyard" (1953), a short story by Clifford D. Simak in which a crew lands on an asteroid and discovers a chamber full of eggs.[15] He has also cited as influences Strange Relations by Philip José Farmer (1960), which covers alien reproduction, and various EC Comics horror titles carrying stories in which monsters eat their way out of people.[15]
With roughly eighty-five percent of the plot completed, Shusett and O'Bannon presented their initial script to several studios,[14] pitching it as "Jaws in space."[20] They were on the verge of signing a deal with Roger Corman's studio when a friend offered to find them a better deal and passed the script on to Walter Hill, David Giler, and Gordon Carroll, who had formed a production company called Brandywine with ties to 20th Century Fox.[14][21] O'Bannon and Shusett signed a deal with Brandywine, but Hill and Giler were not satisfied with the script and made numerous rewrites and revisions to it.[14][22] This caused tension with O'Bannon and Shusett, since Hill and Giler had very little experience with science fiction and according to Shusett: "They weren't good at making it better, or in fact at not making it even worse."[14] O'Bannon believed that they were attempting to justify taking his name off of the script and claiming it as their own.[14] Hill and Giler did add some substantial elements to the story, however, including the android character Ash which O'Bannon felt was an unnecessary subplot,[23] but which Shusett later described as "one of the best things in the movie...That whole idea and scenario was theirs."[14] In total Hill and Giler went through eight different drafts of the script, mostly concentrating on the Ash subplot but also making the dialogue more natural and trimming some sequences set on the alien planetoid.[24]
Despite the multiple rewrites, 20th Century Fox did not express confidence in financing a science fiction film. However, after the success of Star Wars in 1977 the studio's interest in the genre rose substantially. According to Carroll: "When Star Wars came out and was the extraordinary hit that it was, suddenly science fiction became the hot genre." O'Bannon recalled that "They wanted to follow through on Star Wars, and they wanted to follow through fast, and the only spaceship script they had sitting on their desk was Alien".[14] Alien was greenlit by 20th Century Fox at an initial budget of $4.2 million.[14][24]
Direction and design[link]
O'Bannon had originally assumed that he would direct Alien, but 20th Century Fox instead asked Hill to direct.[24][25] Hill declined due to other film commitments as well as not being comfortable with the level of visual effects that would be required.[26] Peter Yates, Jack Clayton, and Robert Aldrich were considered for the task, but O'Bannon, Shusett, and the Brandywine team felt that these directors would not take the film seriously and would instead treat it as a B monster movie.[25][27] Giler, Hill, and Carroll had been impressed by Ridley Scott's debut feature film The Duellists (1977) and made an offer to him to direct Alien, which Scott quickly accepted.[16][27] Scott created detailed storyboards for the film in London, which impressed 20th Century Fox enough to double the film's budget from $4.2 million to $8.4 million.[25][28] His storyboards included designs for the spaceship and space suits, drawing influences from films such as 2001: A Space Odyssey and Star Wars.[28] However, he was keen on emphasizing horror in Alien rather than fantasy, describing the film as "The Texas Chain Saw Massacre of science fiction".[25][27]
O'Bannon introduced Scott to the artwork of H. R. Giger; both of them felt that his painting Necronom IV was the type of representation they wanted for the film's antagonist and began asking the studio to hire him as a designer.[25][27] 20th Century Fox initially believed Giger's work was too ghastly for audiences, but the Brandywine team were persistent and eventually won out.[27] According to Gordon Carroll: "The first second that Ridley saw Giger's work, he knew that the biggest single design problem, maybe the biggest problem in the film, had been solved."[25] Scott flew to Zürich to meet Giger and recruited him to work on all aspects of the Alien and its environment including the surface of the planetoid, the derelict spacecraft, and all four forms of the Alien from the egg to the adult.[25][27]
I resent films that are so shallow they rely entirely on their visual effects, and of course science fiction films are notorious for this. I've always felt that there's another way to do it: a lot of effort should be expended toward rendering the environment of the spaceship, or space travel, whatever the fantastic setting of your story should be–as convincingly as possible, but always in the background. That way the story and the characters emerge and they become more real.[16]
–Ron Cobb on his designs for Alien.
O'Bannon brought in artists Ron Cobb and Chris Foss (with whom he had worked on Dark Star and Dune, respectively) to work on designs for the human aspects of the film such as the spaceship and space suits.[25][29] Cobb created hundreds of preliminary sketches of the interiors and exteriors of the ship, which went through many design concepts and possible names such as Leviathan and Snark as the script continued to develop. The final name of the ship was derived from the title of Joseph Conrad's 1904 novel Nostromo, while the escape shuttle, called Narcissus in the script, was named after Conrad's 1897 novella The Nigger of the 'Narcissus'.[30] The production team particularly praised Cobb's ability to depict the interior settings of the ship in a realistic and believable manner. Under Ridley Scott's direction the design of the Nostromo shifted towards an 800-foot (240 m)-long tug towing a refining platform 2 miles (3.2 km) long and 1.5 miles (2.4 km) wide.[16] Cobb also created some conceptual drawings of the Alien, but these were not used.[25][29] Moebius was attached to the project for a few days as well, and his costume renderings served as the basis for the final space suits created by costume designer John Mollo.[16][29]
Casting[link]
For more details on individual characters, see List of characters in the Alien series.
Casting calls and auditions for Alien were held in both New York and London.[28] With only seven human characters in the story, Scott sought to hire strong actors so he could focus most of his energy on the film's visual style.[28] He employed casting director Mary Selway, who had worked with him on The Duellists, to head the casting in the United Kingdom, while Mary Goldberg handled casting in the United States.[31][32] In developing the story O'Bannon had focused on writing the Alien first, putting off developing the characters for a later draft.[25] He and Shusett had therefore written all of the roles as generic males with a note in the script explicitly stating "The crew is unisex and all parts are interchangeable for men or women."[31][33] This left Scott, Selway, and Goldberg free to interpret the characters as they liked and to cast accordingly. They wanted the Nostromo's crew to resemble working astronauts in a realistic environment, a concept summed up as "truckers in space".[28][31] According to Scott, this concept was inspired partly by Star Wars, which deviated from the pristine future often depicted in science fiction films of the time.[34]
File:Alien (1979) - main cast.jpg
The principal cast members of Alien. Left to right: Holm, Stanton, Weaver, Kotto, Skerritt, Cartwright, and Hurt.
The principal cast members of Alien were:
- Bolaji Badejo as The Alien. A Nigerian design student, Badejo was discovered in a bar by a member of the casting team, who put him in touch with Ridley Scott.[35][36] Scott believed that Badejo, at 7 feet 2 inches (218 cm) and with a slender frame, could portray the Alien and look as if his arms and legs were too long to be real, creating the illusion that there could not possibly be a human being inside the costume.[16][35][36] Stuntmen Eddie Powell and Roy Scammell also portrayed the Alien in some scenes.[16][37]
- Veronica Cartwright as Lambert, the Nostromo's navigator. Cartwright had previous experience in horror and science fiction films, having acted in The Birds (1963) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978).[38] She originally read for the role of Ripley, and was not informed that she had instead been cast as Lambert until she arrived in London for wardrobe.[31][39] She disliked the character's emotional weakness,[36] but nevertheless accepted the role: "They convinced me that I was the audience's fears; I was a reflection of what the audience is feeling."[31] Cartwright won a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actress for her performance.[6][7]
- Ian Holm as Ash, the ship's Science Officer who is revealed to be an android under orders to bring the Alien back to the Nostromo's corporate employers. Holm, a character actor who by 1979 had already been in twenty films, was the most experienced actor cast for Alien.[23]
- John Hurt as Kane, the Executive Officer who becomes the host for the Alien. Hurt was Scott's first choice for the role but was contracted on a film in South Africa during Alien's filming dates, so Jon Finch was cast as Kane instead.[36] However, Finch became ill during the first day of shooting and was diagnosed with severe diabetes, which had also exacerbated a case of bronchitis.[40] Hurt was in London by this time, his South African project having fallen through, and he quickly replaced Finch.[31][40] His performance earned him a nomination for a BAFTA Award for Best Actor in a Supporting Role.[7]
- Yaphet Kotto as Parker, the Chief Engineer. Kotto, an African American, was chosen partly to add diversity to the cast and give the Nostromo crew an international flavor.[31] Kotto was sent a script off the back of his recent success with Live and Let Die, although it was some time and deliberation between Kotto and his agent before he was offered the part.[41]
- Tom Skerritt as Dallas, the Captain of the Nostromo. Skerritt had been approached early in the film's development but declined as it did not yet have a director and had a very low budget. Later, when Scott was attached as director and the budget had been doubled, Skerritt accepted the role of Dallas.[28][31]
- Harry Dean Stanton as Brett, the Engineering Technician. Stanton's first words to Scott during his audition were "I don't like sci fi or monster movies."[28] Scott was amused and convinced Stanton to take the role after reassuring him that Alien would actually be a thriller more akin to Ten Little Indians.[28]
- Sigourney Weaver as Ripley, the Warrant Officer aboard the Nostromo. The decision to make the lead character a woman was made by Giler and Hill, who felt this would help Alien stand out in the otherwise male-dominated genre of science fiction.[31] Weaver, who had Broadway experience but was relatively unknown in film, impressed Scott, Giler, and Hill with her audition. She was the last actor to be cast for the film, and performed most of her screen tests in-studio as the sets were being built.[31][36] The role of Ripley was Weaver's first leading role in a motion picture, and earned her nominations for a Saturn Award for Best Actress and a BAFTA award for Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Role.[7]
To assist the actors in preparing for their roles, Ridley Scott wrote several pages of backstory for each character explaining their histories.[24][42] He filmed many of their rehearsals in order to capture spontaneity and improvisation, and tensions between some of the cast members, particularly towards the less-experienced Weaver, translated convincingly on film as tension between their respective characters.[42]
Film critic Roger Ebert notes that the actors in Alien were older than was typical in thriller films at the time, which helped make the characters more convincing:
[N]one of them were particularly young. Tom Skerritt, the captain, was 46, Hurt was 39 but looked older, Holm was 48, Harry Dean Stanton was 53, Yaphet Kotto was 42, and only Veronica Cartwright at 29 and Weaver at 30 were in the age range of the usual thriller cast. Many recent action pictures have improbably young actors cast as key roles or sidekicks, but by skewing older, Alien achieves a certain texture without even making a point of it: These are not adventurers but workers, hired by a company to return 20 million tons of ore to Earth.[12]
David McIntee, author of Beautiful Monsters: The Unofficial and Unauthorised Guide to the Alien and Predator Films, notes that part of the film's effectiveness in frightening viewers "comes from the fact that the audience can all identify with the characters...Everyone aboard the Nostromo is a normal, everyday, working Joe just like the rest of us. They just happen to live and work in the future."[43]
Set design and filming[link]
Alien was filmed over fourteen weeks from July 5 to October 21, 1978. Principal photography took place at Shepperton Studios in London, while model and miniature filming was done at Bray Studios in Water Oakley.[32] Production time was short due to the film's low budget and pressure from 20th Century Fox to finish on schedule.[42] A crew of over 200 workmen and technicians constructed the three principal sets: The surface of the alien planetoid and the interiors of the Nostromo and derelict spacecraft.[16] Art Director Les Dilley created 1/24th scale miniatures of the planetoid's surface and derelict spacecraft based on Giger's designs, then made moulds and casts and scaled them up as diagrams for the wood and fiberglass forms of the sets.[28] Tons of sand, plaster, fiberglass, rock, and gravel were shipped into the studio to sculpt a desert landscape for the planetoid's surface, which the actors would walk across wearing space suit costumes.[16] The suits themselves were thick, bulky, and lined with nylon, had no cooling systems and, initially, no venting for their exhaled carbon dioxide to escape.[44] Combined with a heat wave, these conditions nearly caused the actors to pass out and nurses had to be kept on-hand with oxygen tanks to help keep them going.[42][44] For scenes showing the exterior of the Nostromo a 58-foot (18 m) landing leg was constructed to give a sense of the ship's size. Ridley Scott still did not think that it looked large enough, so he had his two sons and the son of one of the cameramen stand in for the regular actors, wearing smaller space suits to make the set pieces seem larger.[44][45] The same technique was used for the scene in which the crew members encounter the dead alien creature in the derelict spacecraft. The children nearly collapsed due to the heat of the suits, and eventually oxygen systems were added to assist the actors in breathing.[42][44]
The sets of the Nostromo's three decks were each created almost entirely in one piece, with each deck occupying a separate stage and the various rooms connected via corridors. To move around the sets the actors had to navigate through the hallways of the ship, adding to the film's sense of claustrophobia and realism.[16][42][46] The sets used large transistors and low-resolution computer screens to give the ship a "used", industrial look and make it appear as though it was constructed of "retrofitted old technology".[45] Ron Cobb created industrial-style symbols and color-coded signs for various areas and aspects of the ship.[45] The company that owns the Nostromo is not named in the film, and is referred to by the characters as "the company". However, the name and logo of "Weylan-Yutani" appears on several set pieces and props such as computer monitors and beer cans.[30] Cobb created the name to imply a business alliance between Britain and Japan, deriving "Weylan" from the British Leyland Motor Corporation and "Yutani" from the name of his Japanese neighbor.[29][47] The 1986 sequel Aliens named the company as "Weyland-Yutani",[29][48] and it has remained a central aspect of the film franchise.
Art Director Roger Christian used scrap metal and parts to create set pieces and props to save money, a technique he employed while working on Star Wars.[45][49] Some of the Nostromo's corridors were created from portions of scrapped bomber aircraft, and a mirror was used to create the illusion of longer corridors in the below-deck area.[45] Special effects supervisors Brian Johnson and Nick Allder made many of the set pieces and props function, including moving chairs, computer monitors, motion trackers, and flamethrowers.[16][40] Four identical cats were used to portray Jones, the Nostromo crew's pet.[32] During filming Sigourney Weaver discovered that she was allergic to the combination of cat hair and the glycerin placed on the actors' skin to make them appear sweaty. By removing the glycerin she was able to continue working with the cats.[40][42]
H. R. Giger designed and worked on all of the alien aspects of the film, which he designed to appear organic and biomechanical in contrast to the industrial look of the Nostromo and its human elements.[16][45] For the interior of the derelict spacecraft and egg chamber he used dried bones together with plaster to sculpt much of the scenery and elements.[16][45] Veronica Cartwright described Giger's sets as "so erotic...it's big vaginas and penises...the whole thing is like you're going inside of some sort of womb or whatever...it's sort of visceral".[45] The set with the deceased alien creature, which the production team nicknamed the "space jockey", proved problematic as 20th Century Fox did not want to spend the money for such an expensive set that would only be used for one scene. Ridley Scott described the set as the cockpit or driving deck of the mysterious ship, and the production team was able to convince the studio that the scene was important to impress the audience and make them aware that this was not a B movie.[45][50] To save money only one wall of the set was created, and the "space jockey" sat atop a disc that could be rotated to facilitate shots from different angles in relation to the actors.[16][50] Giger airbrushed the entire set and the "space jockey" by hand.[45][50]
The origin of the jockey creature was not explored in the film, but Scott later theorized that it might have been the ship's pilot, and that the ship might have been a weapons carrier capable of dropping Alien eggs onto a planet so that the Aliens could use the local lifeforms as hosts.[23] In early versions of the script the eggs were to be located in a separate pyramid structure which would be found later by the Nostromo crew and would contain statues and hieroglyphs depicting the Alien reproductive cycle, offering a contrast of the human, Alien, and space jockey cultures.[17] Cobb, Foss, and Giger each created concept artwork for these sequences, but they were eventually discarded due to budgetary concerns and the need to trim the length of the film.[16] Instead the egg chamber was set inside the derelict ship and was filmed on the same set as the space jockey scene; the entire disc piece supporting the jockey and its chair were removed and the set was redressed to create the egg chamber.[16] Light effects in the egg chamber were created by lasers borrowed from English rock band The Who. The band was testing the lasers for use in their stage show in the sound stage next door.[51]
Alien originally was to conclude with the destruction of the Nostromo while Ripley escapes in the shuttle Narcissus. However, Ridley Scott conceived of a "fourth act" to the film in which the Alien appears on the shuttle and Ripley is forced to confront it. He pitched the idea to 20th Century Fox and negotiated an increase in the budget to film the scene over several extra days.[23][52] Scott had wanted the Alien to bite off Ripley's head and then make the final log entry in her voice, but the producers vetoed this idea as they believed that the Alien had to die at the end of the film.[52]
Special effects and creature design[link]
Spaceships and planets[link]
File:Alien model filming.jpg
Ridley Scott filming model shots of the Nostromo and its attached ore refinery. He made slow passes filming at 2½ frames per second to give the models the appearance of motion.[16]
The spaceships and planets for the film were shot using models and miniatures. These included models of the Nostromo, its attached mineral refinery, the escape shuttle Narcissus, the alien planetoid, and the exterior and interior of the derelict spacecraft. Visual Effects Supervisor Brian Johnson, supervising modelmaker Martin Bower, and their team worked at Bray Studios, roughly 30 miles (48 km) from Shepperton Studios where principal filming was taking place.[53][54] The designs of the Nostromo and its attachments were based on combinations of Ridley Scott's storyboards and Ron Cobb's conceptual drawings.[53] The basic outlines of the models were made of wood and plastic, and most of the fine details were added from model kits of battleships, tanks, and World War II bombers. Three models of the Nostromo were made: a 12-inch (30 cm) version for medium and long shots, a 4-foot (1.2 m) version for rear shots, and a 12-foot (3.7 m), 7-short-ton (6.4 t) rig for the undocking and planetoid surface sequences.[16][54] Scott insisted on numerous changes to the models even as filming was taking place, leading to conflicts with the modeling and filming teams. The Nostromo was originally yellow, and the team filmed shots of the models for six weeks before Johnson left to work on The Empire Strikes Back. Scott then ordered it changed to gray, and the team had to begin shooting again from scratch.[53][54] He ordered more and more pieces added to the model until the final large version with the refinery required a metal framework so that it could be lifted by a forklift. He also took a hammer and chisel to sections of the refinery, knocking off many of its spires which Bower had spent weeks creating. Scott also had disagreements with lighting technician Denny Ayling over how to light the models.[53]
A separate model, approximately 40 feet (12 m) long, was created for the Nostromo's underside from which the Narcissus would detach and from which Kane's body would be launched during the funeral scene. Bower carved Kane's burial shroud out of wood and it was launched through the hatch using a small catapult and filmed at high speed, then slowed down in editing.[53][55] Only one shot was filmed using blue screen compositing: that of the shuttle racing past the Nostromo. The other shots were simply filmed against black backdrops, with stars added via double exposure.[54] Though motion control photography technology was available at the time, the film's budget would not allow for it. The team therefore used a camera with wide-angle lenses mounted on a drive mechanism to make slow passes over and around the models filming at 2½ frames per second,[16] giving them the appearance of motion. Scott added smoke and wind effects to enhance the illusion.[53] For the scene in which the Nostromo detaches from the refinery, a 30-foot (9.1 m) docking arm was created using pieces from model railway kits. The Nostromo was pushed away from the refinery by the forklift, which was covered in black velvet, causing the arm to extend out from the refinery. This created the illusion that the arm was pushing the ship forward.[53][54] Shots from outside the ship in which the characters are seen through windows moving around inside were filmed using larger models which contained projection screens showing pre-recorded footage.[53]
A separate model was created for the exterior of the derelict alien spacecraft. Matte paintings were used to fill in areas of the ship's interior as well as exterior shots of the planetoid's surface.[53] The surface as seen from space during the landing sequence was created by painting a globe white, then mixing chemicals and dyes onto transparencies and projecting them onto it.[16][54] The planetoid was not named in the film, but some drafts of the script gave it the name Acheron[36] after the river which in Greek mythology is described as the "stream of woe", a branch of the river Styx, and which forms the border of Hell in Dante's Inferno. The 1986 sequel Aliens named the planetoid as "LV-426",[48] and both names have been used for it in subsequent expanded universe media such as comic books and video games. In Alien the planetoid is said to be located somewhere in the Zeta2 Reticuli system.[56]
Egg and facehugger[link]
The scene of Kane inspecting the egg was shot during post-production. A fiberglass egg was used so that actor John Hurt could shine his light on it and see movement inside, which was provided by Ridley Scott fluttering his hands inside the egg while wearing rubber gloves.[50] The top of the egg opened via hydraulics, and the innards were made of a cow's stomach and tripe.[35][50] Initial test shots of the eggs were filmed using hen's eggs, and this footage was used in early teaser trailers. For this reason a hen's egg was used as the primary image for the film's advertising poster, and became a lasting image for the series as a whole rather than the Alien egg that actually appears in the film.[50]
The "facehugger" and its proboscis, which was made of a sheep's intestine, were shot out of the egg using high-pressure air hoses. The shot was acted out and filmed in reverse, then reversed and slowed down in editing to prolong the effect and show more detail.[35][50] The facehugger itself was the first creature that Giger designed for the film, going through several versions in different sizes before deciding on a small creature with humanlike fingers and a long tail.[35][46] Dan O'Bannon drew his own version based on Giger's design, with help from Ron Cobb, which became the final version.[23][46] Cobb came up with the idea that the creature could have a powerful acid for blood, a characteristic that would carry over to the adult Alien and would make it impossible for the crew to kill it by conventional means such as guns or explosives, since the acid would burn through the ship's hull.[17][23] For the scene in which the dead facehugger is examined, Scott used pieces of fish and shellfish to create its viscera.[35][50]
Chestburster[link]
File:Alien-The Chestburster.png
The "chestburster" was shoved up through the table and false torso by a puppeteer.[35] The scene has been recognized as one of the film's most memorable.
The design of the "chestburster" was inspired by Francis Bacon's 1944 painting Three Studies for Figures at the Base of a Crucifixion.[35] Giger's original design resembled a plucked chicken, which was redesigned and refined into the final version seen onscreen.[35] For the filming of the chestburster scene the cast members knew that the creature would be bursting out of Hurt, and had seen the chestburster puppet, but they had not been told that fake blood would also be bursting out in every direction from high-pressure pumps and squibs.[40][57] The scene was shot in one take using an artificial torso filled with blood and viscera, with Hurt's head and arms coming up from underneath the table. The chestburster was shoved up through the torso by a puppeteer who held it on a stick. When the creature burst through the chest a stream of blood shot directly at Veronica Cartwright, shocking her enough that she fell over and went into hysterics.[16][35][40] According to Tom Skerritt: "What you saw on camera was the real response. She had no idea what the hell happened. All of a sudden this thing just came up."[35] The creature then runs off-camera, an effect accomplished by cutting a slit in the table for the puppeteer's stick to go through and passing an air hose through the puppet's tail to make it whip about.[35]
The real-life surprise of the actors gave the scene an intense sense of realism and made it one of the film's most memorable moments. During preview screenings the crew noticed that some viewers would move towards the back of the theater so as not to be too close to the screen during the sequence.[58] In subsequent years the chestburster scene has often been voted as one of the most memorable moments in film.[59] In 2007, the British film magazine Empire named it as the greatest 18-rated moment in film as part of its "18th birthday" issue, ranking it above the decapitation scene in The Omen (1976) and the transformation sequence in An American Werewolf in London (1981).[60]
The Alien[link]
For more details on the creature, see Alien (creature in Alien franchise).
File:Alien (1979) - The Alien.jpg
Bolaji Badejo in costume as the Alien. The suit was made of latex, with the head as a separate piece housing the moving parts which controlled the second mouth.
Giger made several conceptual paintings of the adult Alien before crafting the final version. He sculpted the creature's body using plasticine, incorporating pieces such as vertebrae from snakes and cooling tubes from a Rolls-Royce.[35][36] The creature's head was manufactured separately by Carlo Rambaldi, who had worked on the aliens in Close Encounters of the Third Kind.[55] Rambaldi followed Giger's designs closely, making some modifications in order to incorporate the moving parts which would animate the jaw and inner mouth.[35] A system of hinges and cables was used to operate the creature's rigid tongue, which protruded from the main mouth and had a second mouth at the tip of it with its own set of movable teeth.[35] The final head had about nine hundred moving parts and points of articulation.[35] Part of a human skull was used as the "face", and was hidden under the smooth, translucent cover of the head.[36] Rambaldi's original Alien jaw is now on display in the Smithsonian Institution,[52] while in April 2007 the original Alien suit was sold at auction.[61] Copious amounts of K-Y Jelly were used to simulate saliva and to give the Alien an overall slimy appearance.[35][46] The creature's vocalizations were provided by Percy Edwards, a voice artist famous for providing bird sounds for British television throughout the 1960s and 1970s as well as the whale sounds for Orca: Killer Whale (1977).[62][63]
For most of the film's scenes the Alien was portrayed by Bolaji Badejo, a Nigerian design student. A latex costume was specifically made to fit Badejo's 7-foot-2-inch (218 cm) slender frame, made by taking a full-body plaster cast of him.[16][35] Scott later commented that "It's a man in a suit, but then it would be, wouldn't it? It takes on elements of the host – in this case, a man."[27] Badejo attended t'ai chi and mime classes in order to create convincing movements for the Alien.[35][36] For some scenes, such as when the Alien lowers itself from the ceiling to kill Brett, the creature was portrayed by stuntmen Eddie Powell and Roy Scammell;[16][37] in that scene a costumed Powell was suspended on wires and then lowered in an unfurling motion.[35][50]
I've never liked horror films before, because in the end it's always been a man in a rubber suit. Well, there's one way to deal with that. The most important thing in a film of this type is not what you see, but the effect of what you think you saw.[16]
–Ridley Scott
Scott chose not to show the Alien in full through most of the film, showing only pieces of it while keeping most of its body in shadow in order to heighten the sense of terror and suspense. The audience could thus project their own fears into imagining what the rest of the creature might look like:[35] "Every movement is going to be very slow, very graceful, and the Alien will alter shape so you never really know exactly what he looks like."[16] The Alien has been referred to as "one of the most iconic movie monsters in film history" in the decades since the film's release, being noted for its biomechanical appearance and sexual overtones.[64] Roger Ebert has remarked that "Alien uses a tricky device to keep the alien fresh throughout the movie: It evolves the nature and appearance of the creature, so we never know quite what it looks like or what it can do...The first time we get a good look at the alien, as it bursts from the chest of poor Kane (John Hurt). It is unmistakably phallic in shape, and the critic Tim Dirks mentions its 'open, dripping vaginal mouth.'"[12]
Ash[link]
For the scene in which Ash is revealed to be an android and has his head knocked off, a puppet was created of the character's torso and upper body which was operated from underneath by a small puppeteer.[42] During a preview screening of the film this scene caused a female usher to faint.[58][65] In the following scene Ash's head is placed on a table and re-activated; for portions of this scene an animatronic head was made using a face cast of actor Ian Holm.[52] However the latex of the head shrank while drying and the result was not entirely convincing.[42] For the bulk of the scene Holm knelt under the table with his head coming up through a hole and milk, caviar, pasta, and glass marbles were used to show the android's inner workings and fluids.[42][52]
Music[link]
Main article: Alien (soundtrack)
The musical score for Alien was composed by Jerry Goldsmith, conducted by Lionel Newman, and performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra. Ridley Scott had originally wanted the film to be scored by Isao Tomita, but 20th Century Fox wanted a more familiar composer and Goldsmith was recommended by then-President of Fox Alan Ladd, Jr.[63] Goldsmith wanted to create a sense of romanticism and lyrical mystery in the film's opening scenes, which would build throughout the film to suspense and fear.[66] Scott did not like Goldsmith's original main title piece, however, so Goldsmith rewrote it as "the obvious thing: weird and strange, and which everybody loved."[63][66] Another source of tension was editor Terry Rawlings' choice to use pieces of Goldsmith's music from previous films, including a piece from Freud: The Secret Passion, and to use an excerpt from Howard Hanson's Symphony No.2 ("Romantic") for the end credits.[63][66][67][68]
Scott and Rawlings had also become attached to several of the musical cues they had used for the temporary score while editing the film, and re-edited some of Goldsmith's cues and re-scored several sequences to match these cues and even left the temporary score in place in some parts of the finished film.[66] Goldsmith later remarked that "you can see that I was sort of like going at opposite ends of the pole with the filmmakers of the picture."[66] Nevertheless, Scott praised Goldsmith's score as "full of dark beauty"[63] and "seriously threatening, but beautiful."[66] It was nominated for a Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, a Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album, and a BAFTA Award for Best Film Music.[7] The score has been released as a soundtrack album in several versions with different tracks and sequences.[69]
Editing[link]
Editing and post-production work on Alien took roughly twenty weeks to complete.[66] Terry Rawlings served as Editor, having previously worked with Scott on editing sound for The Duellists.[66] Scott and Rawlings edited much of the film to have a slow pace to build suspense for the more tense and frightening moments. According to Rawlings: "I think the way we did get it right was by keeping it slow, funny enough, which is completely different from what they do today. And I think the slowness of it made the moments that you wanted people to be sort of scared...then we could go as fast as we liked because you've sucked people into a corner and then attacked them, so to speak. And I think that's how it worked."[66] The first cut of the film was over three hours long; further editing trimmed the final version to just under two hours.[58][66]
One scene that was cut from the film occurred during Ripley's final escape from the Nostromo: she encounters Dallas and Brett who have been partially cocooned by the Alien. O'Bannon had intended the scene to indicate that Brett was becoming an Alien egg while Dallas was held nearby to be implanted by the resulting facehugger.[21] Production Designer Michael Seymour later suggested that Dallas had "become sort of food for the alien creature",[45] while Ivor Powell suggested that "Dallas is found in the ship as an egg, still alive."[66] Scott remarked that "they're morphing, metamorphosing, they are changing into...being consumed, I guess, by whatever the Alien's organism is...into an egg."[23] The scene was cut partly because it did not look realistic enough and partly because it slowed the pace of the escape sequence.[21][52] Tom Skerritt remarked that "The picture had to have that pace. Her trying to get the hell out of there, we're all rooting for her to get out of there, and for her to slow up and have a conversation with Dallas was not appropriate."[66] The footage was included amongst other deleted scenes as a special feature on the Laserdisc release of Alien, and a shortened version of it was re-inserted into the 2003 "Director's Cut" which was re-released in theaters and on DVD.[21][70]
Release and reception[link]
It was the most incredible preview I've ever been in. I mean, people were screaming and running out of the theater.[65]
–Editor Terry Rawlings describing the film's screening in Dallas.
An initial screening of Alien for 20th Century Fox representatives in St. Louis suffered from poor sound in the theater. A subsequent screening in a newer theater in Dallas went significantly better, eliciting genuine fright from the audience.[65] Two theatrical trailers were shown to the public. The first consisted of rapidly changing still images set to some of Jerry Goldsmith's electronic music from Logan's Run. The second used test footage of a hen's egg set to part of Goldsmith's Alien score.[58] The film was previewed in various American cities in the spring of 1979[58] and was promoted by the tagline "In space no one can hear you scream."[65][71]
Alien opened in theaters on May 25, 1979.[71] It was rated "R" in the United States, "X" in the United Kingdom, and "M" in Australia.[32] In the UK, the British Board of Film Classification almost passed the film as an "AA", although there were concerns over the prevalent sexual imagery. 20th Century Fox eventually relented in pushing for an AA certificate after deciding that an X rating would be a better choice commercially for selling a horror film.[72]
The film had no official premier in the United States, yet moviegoers lined up for blocks to see it at Grauman's Egyptian Theatre in Hollywood where a number of models, sets, and props were displayed outside to promote it during its first run.[58][65] Religious zealots set fire to the model of the space jockey, believing it to be the work of the devil.[58] Alien did have a formal premiere in the United Kingdom at the Odeon Leicester Square on September 6, 1979, but it did not open widely in Britain until January 13, 1980.[58]
Critical reaction to the film was initially mixed. Some critics who were not usually favorable towards science fiction, such as Barry Norman of the BBC's Film series, were positive about the film's merits.[58] Others, however, were not: Reviews by Variety, Sight and Sound, Vincent Canby and Leonard Maltin were mixed or negative.[73] A review by Time Out said the film was an "empty bag of tricks whose production values and expensive trickery cannot disguise imaginative poverty".[74]
The film was a commercial success, making $78,900,000 in the United States and £7,886,000 in the United Kingdom during its first run.[58] It ultimately grossed $80,931,801 in the United States and $24,000,000 internationally, bringing its total worldwide gross to $104,931,801.[3]
Accolades[link]
Further information: List of accolades received by Alien
Alien won the 1979 Academy Award for Visual Effects and was also nominated for Best Art Direction (for Michael Seymour, Leslie Dilley, Roger Christian, and Ian Whittaker).[4][7] It won Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Direction for Ridley Scott, and Best Supporting Actress for Veronica Cartwright,[6] and was also nominated in the categories of Best Actress for Sigourney Weaver, Best Make-up for Pat Hay, Best Special Effects for Brian Johnson and Nick Allder, and Best Writing for Dan O'Bannon.[7] It was also nominated for British Academy of Film and Television Arts (BAFTA) awards for Best Costume Design for John Mollo, Best Editing for Terry Rawlings, Best Supporting Actor for John Hurt, and Most Promising Newcomer to Leading Film Role for Sigourney Weaver.[7] It also won a Hugo Award for Best Dramatic Presentation and was nominated for a British Society of Cinematographers award for Best Cinematography for Derek Vanlint, as well as a Silver Seashell award for Best Cinematography and Special Effects at the San Sebastián International Film Festival.[7] Jerry Goldsmith's score received nominations for the Golden Globe Award for Best Original Score, the Grammy Award for Best Soundtrack Album, and a BAFTA Award for Best Film Music.[7]
Merchandising[link]
For more details on this topic, see Alien (soundtrack) and List of Alien and Predator games.
Around and shortly after Alien's release in theaters, a number of merchandise items and media were released and sold to coincide with the film. These included a novelization by Alan Dean Foster, in both adult and "junior" versions, which was adapted from the film's shooting script.[63] Heavy Metal magazine published a comic strip adaptation of the film entitled Alien: The Illustrated Story, as well as a 1980 Alien calendar.[63] Two behind-the-scenes books were released in 1979 to accompany the film: The Book of Alien contained many production photographs and details on the making of the film, while Giger's Alien contained much of H. R. Giger's concept artwork for the movie.[63] A soundtrack album was released as an LP featuring selections of Goldsmith's score, and a single of the main theme was released in 1980.[69] A twelve-inch tall model kit of the Alien was released by the Model Products Corporation in the United States and by Airfix in the United Kingdom.[56] Kenner also produced a larger-scale Alien action figure, as well as a board game in which players raced to be first to reach the shuttle pod while Aliens roamed the Nostromo's corridors and air shafts.[56] Official Halloween costumes of the Alien were released for October 1979.[56] Several computer games based on the film were released, but not until several years after its theatrical run.[56]
Sequels[link]
For more details on this topic, see Alien (franchise).
The success of Alien led 20th Century Fox to finance three direct sequels over the next eighteen years, each by different writers and directors. Sigourney Weaver remained the only recurring actor through all four films, and the story of her character Ripley's encounters with the Aliens became the thematic thread running through the series.[12] James Cameron's Aliens (1986) focused more on action and involved Ripley returning to the planetoid accompanied by marines to confront hordes of Aliens.[48] David Fincher's Alien 3 (1992) had nihilistic tones[43] and found her on a prison planet battling another Alien, ultimately sacrificing herself to prevent her employers from acquiring the creatures.[75] Jean-Pierre Jeunet's Alien Resurrection (1997) saw Ripley resurrected through cloning to battle more Aliens even further in the future.[76]
The success of the film series resulted in the creation of a media franchise with numerous novels, comic books, video games, toys, and other media and merchandise appearing over the years. A number of these began appearing under the Alien vs. Predator crossover imprint, which brought the Alien creatures together with the titular Predators of the Predator franchise. The film series eventually followed suit, with Paul W. S. Anderson's Alien vs. Predator (2004) and Colin and Greg Strause's Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (2007) abandoning the Ripley character in favor of prequel stories set in the 2000s.[77][78][79]
Despite not appearing in either prequel, Sigourney Weaver has expressed interest in reuniting with Ridley Scott to revive her character for another Alien film. In the 2003 commentary track for the Alien DVD included in the Alien Quadrilogy set, she and Scott both speculated on the possibility, with Weaver stating: "There is an appetite for a fifth one, which is something I never expected...it's really hard to come up with a fifth story that's new and fresh...but I have wanted to go back into space...I think outer space adventure is a good thing for us right now, 'cause Earth is so grim...so we've been talking about it, but very generally."[23] Scott remarked that, if the series were to continue, the most logical course would be to explore the origins of the space jockey and the Aliens.[80] Weaver supported this idea, stating that "I think it would be great to go back, because I'm asked that question so many times: 'Where did the Alien come from?' People really want to know in a very visceral way."[23] David Giler stated that he, Walter Hill, and Gordon Carroll, the producers of the first five films in the series, would not be willing to produce another unless it was about the Aliens' homeworld and Weaver was on board (although Hill did return to produce Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem). Weaver, in turn, indicated that she would only return to the franchise if either Scott or James Cameron were directing.[81] Cameron had been working on a story for a fifth Alien film which would explore the origins of the creatures, but ceased work on it when he learned that Fox was pursuing Alien vs. Predator, which he felt would "kill the validity of the franchise".[82][83] Weaver has continued to express interest in another installment, stating in 2008 that "I would definitely do another if I had a director like Ridley Scott and we had a good idea. Ridley is enthusiastic about it."[84]
In July 2009 20th Century Fox announced that Jon Spaihts had been hired to write a prequel to Alien, with Scott attached to direct.[85] The script was subsequently re-worked by Scott and Damon Lindelof. Titled Prometheus, it went into production in May 2011, scheduled for theatrical release in June 2012. Scott released a statement: "While Alien was indeed the jumping-off point for this project, out of the creative process evolved a new, grand mythology and universe in which this original story takes place. The keen fan will recognize strands of Alien's DNA, so to speak, but the ideas tackled in this film are unique, large and provocative."[86]
Home video releases[link]
Alien has been released in many home video formats and packages over the years. The first of these was a seventeen-minute Super-8 version for home projectionists.[56] It was also released on both VHS and Betamax for rental, which grossed it an additional $40,300,000 in the United States alone.[58] Several VHS releases were subsequently sold both singly and as boxed sets. Laserdisc and Videodisc versions followed, including deleted scenes and director commentary as bonus features.[56][87] A VHS box set containing Alien and the sequels Aliens and Alien 3 was released in facehugger-shaped boxes, including some of the deleted scenes from the Laserdisc editions.[87] When Alien Resurrection premiered in theaters, another set of the first three films was released including a Making of Alien Resurrection tape. A few months later the set was re-released with the full version of Alien Resurrection taking the place of the making-of video.[87] Alien was released on DVD in 1999, both singly and packaged with Aliens and Alien 3 as The Alien Legacy.[56][87] This set was also released in a VHS version and included a commentary track by Ridley Scott.[56][87] The first three films of the series have also been packaged as the Alien Triple Pack.
2003 Director's Cut[link]
The traditional definition of the term "Director's Cut" suggests the restoration of a director's original vision, free of any creative limitations. It suggests that the filmmaker has finally overcome the interference of heavy-handed studio executives, and that the film has been restored to its original, untampered form. Such is not the case with Alien: The Director's Cut. It's a completely different beast.[88]
–Ridley Scott
In 2003 20th Century Fox was preparing the Alien Quadrilogy DVD box set, which would include Alien and its three sequels. In addition, the set would also include alternate versions of all four films in the form of "special editions" and "director's cuts". Fox approached Ridley Scott to digitally restore and remaster Alien, and to restore several scenes which had been cut during the editing process for inclusion in an expanded version of the film.[88] Upon viewing the expanded version, Scott felt that it was too long and chose to recut it into a more streamlined alternate version:
Upon viewing the proposed expanded version of the film, I felt that the cut was simply too long and the pacing completely thrown off. After all, I cut those scenes out for a reason back in 1979. However, in the interest of giving the fans a new experience with Alien, I figured there had to be an appropriate middle ground. I chose to go in and recut that proposed long version into a more streamlined and polished alternate version of the film. For marketing purposes, this version is being called "The Director's Cut."[88]
The "Director's Cut" restored roughly four minutes of deleted footage while cutting about five minutes of other material, leaving it about a minute shorter than the theatrical cut.[58] Many of the changes were minor, such as altered sound effects, while the restored footage included the scene in which Ripley discovers the cocooned Dallas and Brett during her escape of the Nostromo. Fox decided to release the Director's Cut in theaters, and it premiered on October 31, 2003.[58] The Alien Quadrilogy box set was released December 2, 2003, with both versions of the film included along with a new commentary track featuring many of the film's actors, writers, and production staff, as well as other special features and a documentary entitled The Beast Within: The Making of Alien. Each film was also released separately as a DVD with both versions of the film included. Scott noted that he was very pleased with the original theatrical cut of Alien, saying that "For all intents and purposes, I felt that the original cut of Alien was perfect. I still feel that way", and that the original 1979 theatrical version "remains my version of choice".[88] He has since stated that he considers both versions "director's cuts", as he feels that the 1979 version was the best he could possibly have made it at the time.[88]
The Alien Quadrilogy set earned Alien a number of new awards and nominations. It won DVDX Exclusive Awards for Best Audio Commentary and Best Overall DVD, Classic Movie, and was also nominated for Best Behind-the-Scenes Program and Best Menu Design.[7] It also won a Sierra Award for Best DVD, and was nominated for a Saturn Award for Best DVD Collection and Golden Satellite Awards for Best DVD Extras and Best Overall DVD.[7] In 2010 both the theatrical version and Director's Cut of Alien were released on Blu-ray Disc, as a stand-alone release and as part of the Alien Anthology set.[89]
Impact and analysis[link]
Imitations[link]
The 1979 Alien is a much more cerebral movie than its sequels, with the characters (and the audience) genuinely engaged in curiosity about this weirdest of lifeforms...Unfortunately, the films it influenced studied its thrills but not its thinking.[12]
–Film critic Roger Ebert on Alien's cinematic impact.
Alien had both an immediate and long-term impact on the science fiction and horror genres. Shortly after its debut, Dan O'Bannon was sued by another writer named Jack Hammer for allegedly plagiarising a script entitled Black Space. However, O'Bannon was able to prove that he had written his Alien script first.[90] In the wake of Alien's success a number of other filmmakers imitated or adapted some of its elements, sometimes by copying its title. One of the first was The Alien Dead (1979), which was titled at the last minute to cash in on Alien's popularity.[91] Contamination (1980) was initially going to be titled Alien 2 until 20th Century Fox's lawyers contacted writer/director Luigi Cozzi and made him change it, and it built on press coverage of Alien's chestburster scene by having many similar creatures, which originated from large, slimy eggs, bursting from characters' chests.[91] An unauthorized Italian sequel to Alien, titled Alien 2, was released in 1980 and included alien creatures which incubate inside human hosts. Other science fiction films of the time that exploited elements of Alien included Inseminoid (1981) and Xtro (1982).[91]
Antecedents[link]
In the decades since its original release critics have analyzed and acknowledged Alien's roots in earlier works of fiction. It has been noted as sharing thematic similarities with earlier science fiction films such as The Thing from Another World (1951)[12][92] and It! The Terror from Beyond Space (1958),[19][64] as well as a kinship with other 1970s horror films such as Jaws (1975) and Halloween (1978).[12] Literary connections have also been suggested, including thematic comparisons to And Then There Were None (1939).[92] Many critics have also suggested that the film derives in part from A. E. van Vogt's The Voyage of the Space Beagle (1950), particularly the stories The Black Destroyer, in which a cat-like alien infiltrates the ship and hunts the crew, and Discord in Scarlet, in which an alien implants parasitic eggs inside crew members which then hatch and eat their way out.[93] O'Bannon, however, denies that this was a source of his inspiration for Alien's story.[15] Van Vogt actually initiated a lawsuit against 20th Century Fox over the similarities, but Fox settled out of court.[94] Rick Sanchez of ign.com noted the "striking resemblance"[95] to Mario Bava's cult classic Planet of the Vampires, especially in a celebrated sequence in which the crew discovers a ruin containing the skeletal remains of long dead giant beings, and in the design and shots of the ship itself, astonishingly similar to the derelict spacecraft in Alien.[96] Despite the astounding visual similarities, both O'Bannon and director Ridley Scott claimed in a 1979 interview that they had not seen Planet of the Vampires.[97]
Writer David McIntee has also noted similarities to the Doctor Who episode "The Ark in Space" (1975), in which an insectoid queen alien lays larvae inside humans which later eat their way out, a life cycle inspired by that of the ichneumons wasp.[15] He has also noted similarities between the first half of the film, particularly in early versions of the script, to H.P. Lovecraft's At the Mountains of Madness, "not in storyline, but in dread-building mystery",[15] and calls the finished film "the best Lovecraftian movie ever made, without being a Lovecraft adaptation", due to its similarities in tone and atmosphere to Lovecraft's works.[43]
Lasting critical praise[link]
Alien has continued to receive critical praise over the years, particularly for its realism and unique environment.[64] It has a 96% approval rating at the online review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes based on 82 reviews,[98] while Metacritic gives the Director's Cut an 83% approval rating based on 22 reviews.[99] Critical interest in the film was re-ignited in part by the theatrical release of the "Director's Cut" in 2003. In his "Great Movies" column that year, critic Roger Ebert ranked it among "the most influential of modern action pictures", praising its pacing, atmosphere, and settings:
One of the great strengths of Alien is its pacing. It takes its time. It waits. It allows silences (the majestic opening shots are underscored by Jerry Goldsmith with scarcely audible, far-off metallic chatterings). It suggests the enormity of the crew's discovery by building up to it with small steps: The interception of a signal (is it a warning or an SOS?). The descent to the extraterrestrial surface. The bitching by Brett and Parker, who are concerned only about collecting their shares. The masterstroke of the surface murk through which the crew members move, their helmet lights hardly penetrating the soup. The shadowy outline of the alien ship. The sight of the alien pilot, frozen in his command chair. The enormity of the discovery inside the ship ("It's full of ... leathery eggs ...").[12]
McIntee praises Alien as "possibly the definitive combination of horror thriller with [science fiction] trappings."[43] He notes, however, that it is a horror film first and a science fiction film second, since science fiction normally explores issues of how humanity will develop under other circumstances. Alien, on the other hand, focuses on the plight of people being attacked by a monster: "It's set on a spaceship in the future, but it's about people trying not to get eaten by a drooling monstrous animal. Worse, it's about them trying not to get raped by said drooling monstrous animal."[43] Along with Halloween and Friday the 13th (1980), he describes it as a prototype for the slasher film genre: "The reason it's such a good movie, and wowed both the critics, who normally frown on the genre, and the casual cinema-goer, is that it is a distillation of everything that scares us in the movies."[43] He also describes how the film appeals to a variety of audiences: "Fans of Hitchcockian thrillers like it because it's moody and dark. Gorehounds like it for the chest-burster. [Science fiction] fans love the hard [science fiction] trappings and hardware. Men love the battle-for-survival element, and women love not being cast as the helpless victim."[100]
Almost every horror film since Alien has ripped it off in some way, but most of the imitations have focused on details — a slimy killing-machine monster that is both vaginal and penile; the dripping, cavernous interiors of the Nostromo; those immensely influential H. R. Giger "biomechanical" designs — and missed what you might call the overall Zeitgeist of the film.[101]
–Salon.com critic Andrew O'Hehir
Salon.com critic Andrew O'Hehir notes that Alien "has a profoundly existentialist undertow that makes it feel like a film noir"[101] and praises it over its "increasingly baroque" sequels as "a film about human loneliness amid the emptiness and amorality of creation. It's a cynical '70s-leftist vision of the future in which none of the problems plaguing 20th century Earth—class divisions, capitalist exploitation, the subjugation of humanity to technology—have been improved in the slightest by mankind's forays into outer space."[101]
In 2002, Alien was deemed "culturally, historically or aesthetically significant" by the National Film Preservation Board of the United States,[9] and was inducted into the National Film Registry of the Library of Congress for historical preservation alongside other films of 1979 including All That Jazz, Apocalypse Now, The Black Stallion, and Manhattan.[8] In 2008 the American Film Institute ranked Alien as the seventh-best film in the science fiction genre as part of AFI's 10 Top 10, a CBS television special ranking the ten greatest movies in ten classic American film genres. The ranks were based on a poll of over 1,500 film artists, critics, and historians, with Alien ranking just above Terminator 2: Judgment Day (1991) and just below Ridley Scott's other science fiction film Blade Runner (1982).[10] The same year, Empire magazine ranked it thirty-third on its list of the five hundred greatest movies of all time, based on a poll of 10,200 readers, critics, and members of the film industry.[11]
Sexual imagery[link]
Critics have also analyzed Alien's sexual overtones. Adrian Mackinder compares the facehugger's attack on Kane to a male rape and the chestburster scene to a form of violent birth, noting that the Alien's phallic head and method of killing the crew members add to the sexual imagery.[64] Dan O'Bannon has argued that the scene is a metaphor for the male fear of penetration, and that the "oral invasion" of Kane by the facehugger functions as "payback" for the many horror films in which sexually vulnerable women are attacked by male monsters.[102] McIntee claims that "Alien is a rape movie as much as Straw Dogs (1971) or I Spit on Your Grave (1978), or The Accused (1988). On one level it's about an intriguing alien threat. On one level it's about parasitism and disease. And on the level that was most important to the writers and director, it's about sex, and reproduction by non-consensual means. And it's about this happening to a man."[103] He notes how the film plays on men's fear and misunderstanding of pregnancy and childbirth, while also giving women a glimpse into these fears.[104] Film analyst Lina Badley has written that the Alien's design, with strong Freudian sexual undertones, multiple phallic symbols, and overall feminine figure, provides an androgynous image conforming to archetypal mappings and imageries in horror films that often redraw gender lines.[105] O'Bannon himself later described the sexual imagery in Alien as overt and intentional: "One thing that people are all disturbed about is sex... I said 'That's how I'm going to attack the audience; I'm going to attack them sexually. And I'm not going to go after the women in the audience, I'm going to attack the men. I am going to put in every image I can think of to make the men in the audience cross their legs. Homosexual oral rape, birth. The thing lays its eggs down your throat, the whole number.'"[106]
Notes[link]
- ^ "Alien". British Board of Film Classification. http://www.bbfc.co.uk/AFF013217/.
- ^ Official documentation for the film states that the budget was $11 million, but other sources give different numbers. Sigourney Weaver has stated that it was $14 million, while Ridley Scott, Ivor Powell, and Tom Skerritt have each recalled it being closer to $8.4 million. McIntee, 14–15.
- ^ a b "Alien". Box Office Mojo. http://www.boxofficemojo.com/movies/?id=alien.htm. Retrieved 2008-09-08.
- ^ a b "Awards database". Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. http://awardsdatabase.oscars.org/ampas_awards/BasicSearchInput.jsp. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
- ^ "Alien: Awards". http://www.allrovi.com/movies/movie/alien-v1503. Retrieved 2011-07-02.
- ^ a b c "Past Saturn Awards". The Academy of Science Fiction, Fantasy, & Horror Films. http://www.saturnawards.org/past.html. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m "Alien (1979) - Awards". Internet Movie Database. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078748/awards. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
- ^ a b "Films Selected to the National Film Registry, Library of Congress, 1989-2007". National Film Registry. http://www.loc.gov/film/titles.html. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
- ^ a b "National Film Preservation Board". National Film Preservation Board. http://www.loc.gov/film/filmabou.html. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
- ^ a b "AFI's 10 Top 10: Top 10 Sci-Fi". American Film Institute. http://www.afi.com/10top10/scifi.html. Retrieved 2008-10-08.
- ^ a b "Empire's The 500 Greatest Movies of All Time". Empire magazine. 2008-09-25. http://www.empireonline.com/500/91.asp. Retrieved 2010-12-01.
- ^ a b c d e f g h Ebert, Roger (2003-10-26). "Great Movies: Alien (1979)". Chicago Sun-Times. http://rogerebert.suntimes.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20031026/REVIEWS08/310260301/1023. Retrieved 2008-07-14.
- ^ In the script and film the computer is referred to by the crew members as "Mother". An October 1979 issue of Fantastic Films magazine, as well as the back of the 1980 Fox videodisk of the film, explain that "Mother" is an abbreviation for "MU/TH/UR 6000", the model of the computer. The chapter list for Alien in the 2003 Alien Quadrilogy DVD set also lists it as "MU/TH/UR". The 1997 sequel Alien Resurrection, the fourth film in the series, echoed this element by having the crew of the Auriga refer to the ship's onboard computer as "Father." McIntee, 25, 119.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r "Star Beast: Developing the Story", The Beast Within: The Making of Alien.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i McIntee, 20.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y z aa ab ac ad Scanlon, Paul; Michael Cross (1979). The Book of Alien. London: Titan Books. ISBN 1-85286-483-4.
- ^ a b c d e McIntee, 21.
- ^ McIntee, 21–22.
- ^ a b c d e McIntee, 19.
- ^ Hays, Matthew (2003-10-23). "A space odyssey". Montreal Mirror. http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2003/102303/film1.html. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
- ^ a b c d McIntee, 24.
- ^ McIntee, 25.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i Dan O'Bannon (Writer), Ridley Scott (Director), Sigourney Weaver (Actor) (2003). Alien (DVD (audio commentary track)). 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc..
- ^ a b c d McIntee, 26.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "The Visualists: Direction and Design", The Beast Within: The Making of Alien.
- ^ McIntee, 26–27.
- ^ a b c d e f g McIntee, 27.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i McIntee, 29.
- ^ a b c d e McIntee, 28.
- ^ a b McIntee, 15.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Truckers in Space: Casting", The Beast Within: The Making of Alien.
- ^ a b c d McIntee, 14.
- ^ McIntee, 22.
- ^ Scott, Ridley (2004) (Star Wars Trilogy). The Force Is With Them: The Legacy of Star Wars (DVD box set, audio commentary track). Los Angeles: Lucasfilm Ltd. and 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc. "Within the context of that fantasy [George Lucas] said people still have to wash behind their ears at night. That was another wonderful touch. It influenced me when I did Alien. I thought I better push it a bit further and make them truck drivers."
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v "The Eighth Passenger: Creature Design", The Beast Within: The Making of Alien
- ^ a b c d e f g h i McIntee, 30.
- ^ a b McIntee, 30–31.
- ^ Mcintee, 17.
- ^ McIntee, 29–30.
- ^ a b c d e f McIntee, 32.
- ^ Steve, Head. "An Exclusive Interview with Yaphet Kotto. Parker talks Alien with IGNFF's Steve Head.". IGN Movies. http://uk.movies.ign.com/articles/456/456974p1.html. Retrieved 21 April 2012.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j "Fear of the Unknown: Shepperton Studios, 1978", The Beast Within: The Making of Alien.
- ^ a b c d e f McIntee, 41.
- ^ a b c d McIntee, 33.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "The Darkest Reaches: Nostromo and Alien Planet", The Beast Within: The Making of Alien.
- ^ a b c d e McIntee, 31.
- ^ Mollo, John; Ron Cobb. The Authorized Portfolio of Crew Insignias from the United States Commercial Spaceship Nostromo, Designs and Realizations. "I wanted to imply that poor old England is back on its feet and has united with the Japanese, who have taken over the building of spaceships the same way they have now with cars and supertankers. In coming up with a strange company name I thought of British Leyland and Toyota, but we couldn't use "Leyland-Toyota" in the film. Changing one letter gave me "Weylan," and "Yutani" was a Japanese neighbor of mine."
- ^ a b c Cameron, James (Director) (2003). Aliens (DVD). Beverly Hills, California: 20th Century Fox.
- ^ McIntee, 31–32.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j McIntee, 34.
- ^ Nathan, Ian (17 September 2011). Alien Vault: The Definitive Story of the Making of the Film. Voyageur Press.
- ^ a b c d e f McIntee, 35.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "Outward Bound: Visual Effects", The Beast Within: The Making of Alien.
- ^ a b c d e f McIntee, 36
- ^ a b McIntee, 37.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i McIntee, 39.
- ^ "The Making of Alien's Chestburster Scene". The Guardian. 2009-10-13. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2009/oct/13/making-of-alien-chestburster. Retrieved 2010-05-29.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m McIntee, 40.
- ^ Green, Graeme (2009-12-10). "John Hurt talks Harry Potter, Flamenco and Chestbursters". Metro. http://www.metro.co.uk/showbiz/interviews/805670-john-hurt-talks-harry-potter-flamenco-and-chestbursters. Retrieved 2010-05-29.
- ^ "Alien named as top 18-rated scene". BBC News. 2007-04-26. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/6597295.stm. Retrieved 2008-09-07.
- ^ "Buy the 1979 Original Alien Suit By H.R. Giger". Gadgetmadness.com. 2007-04-02. http://www.gadgetmadness.com/archives/20070402-buy_the_1979_original_alien_suit_by_hr_giger.php. Retrieved 2008-09-08.
- ^ McIntee, 18.
- ^ a b c d e f g h McIntee, 38.
- ^ a b c d Mackinder, Adrian (2002-01-01). "Alien (1979) Movie Review". Future Movies. http://www.futuremovies.co.uk/review.asp?ID=111. Retrieved 2008-07-02.
- ^ a b c d e "A Nightmare Fulfilled: Reaction to the Film", The Beast Within: The Making of Alien.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i j k l "Future Tense: Music and Editing", The Beast Within: The Making of Alien.
- ^ "Symphony 2 Howard Hanson". http://web.ukonline.co.uk/nso/Hanson2.htm.
- ^ "Great American Composers". http://www.classicalcdreview.com/hanson.html.
- ^ a b McIntee, 38–39.
- ^ (Alien Quadrilogy, disc 1) Alien (Director's Cut) (DVD). Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc. 2003-12-02.
- ^ a b "Alien". Allrovi. http://www.allrovi.com/movies/movie/alien-v1503. Retrieved 2011-07-02.
- ^ "Alien: BBFC classification report". BBFC. http://www.bbfc.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/Alien-Final.pdf. Retrieved 29 May 2012.
- ^ "Anti Reviews on Movie-Film-Review". Christopher Tookey. http://www.movie-film-review.com/devfilm.asp?rtype=3&id=387. Retrieved 2009-10-11.
- ^ Halliwell, Leslie; Walker (editor), John (2001). Halliwell's Film & Video Guide 2001 (16th Edition). London: Harper Collins. p. 16. ISBN 0-00-653219-5.
- ^ Fincher, David (Director) (2003). Alien 3 (DVD). Beverly Hills, California: 20th Century Fox.
- ^ Jeunet, Jean-Pierre (Director) (2003). Alien Resurrection (DVD). Beverly Hills, California: 20th Century Fox.
- ^ Anderson, Paul W. S. (Director) (2005). Alien vs. Predator (DVD). Beverly Hills, California: 20th Century Fox.
- ^ Strause, Colin and Greg (Directors) (2008). Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem (DVD). Beverly Hills, California: 20th Century Fox.
- ^ The date in which the events of Alien are set is not revealed in the film itself, but the first draft of the script gave the year as 2087. McIntee, 23.
- ^ Ridley Scott (Director) (2003). Alien (DVD (audio commentary track)). 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc.. "It's a tough one, particularly with the success of four. I think if you close the lid it should be the end of the first chapter, and I think very simply what no one's done is simply gone back to re-visit 'what was it?' No one's ever said 'who's the space jockey?' He wasn't an Alien. What was that battleship? Is it a battleship? Is it an aircraft carrier? Is it a bio-mechanoid weapon carrier?...Why did it land? Did it crash-land, or did it settle there because it had engine trouble?...And how long ago? 'Cause those eggs would sit there."
- ^ McIntee, 264.
- ^ Vespe, Eric "Quint" (2006-02-07). "Holy Crap! Quint Interviews James Cameron!!!". Ain't It Cool News. http://www.aintitcool.com/display.cgi?id=22405. Retrieved 2007-12-20.
- ^ Davidson, Paul (2006-02-08). "AVP Killed Alien 5". IGN. http://movies.ign.com/articles/686/686746p1.html. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
- ^ "Sigourney Plans Shock Comeback". OK! Magazine. 2008-06-28. http://ok.co.uk/celebnews/view/1554/Sigourney-plans-shock-comeback-/. Retrieved 2008-09-05.
- ^ Fleming, Michael (2009-07-30). "'Alien' Prequel Takes Off". Variety. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118006722.html?categoryid=13&cs=1&ref=bd_film. Retrieved 2009-08-03.
- ^ Abrams, Rachel (14 Jan 2011). "Rapace boards Ridley Scott's Prometheus". Variety.com. http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118030307. Retrieved 5 June 2011.
- ^ a b c d e McIntee, 259.
- ^ a b c d e Ridley Scott (Director) (2003-12-02). Alien Quadrilogy (DVD booklet). Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc.
- ^ "Alien Series Has A Blu-ray Release Date". http://www.empireonline.com/news/story.asp?NID=28371. Retrieved 2012-28-05.
- ^ McIntee, 40–41.
- ^ a b c McIntee, 262.
- ^ a b French, Philip (2003-11-02). "Alien (review)". The Guardian. http://film.guardian.co.uk/News_Story/Critic_Review/Observer_review/0,,1075900,00.html. Retrieved 2008-07-15.
- ^ McIntee, 19–20.
- ^ "The Voyage of the Space Beagle". My Science Fiction Life. BBC. http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/mysciencefictionlife/A20258336. Retrieved 2008-08-02.
- ^ Sanchez, Rick (February 27, 2002). "Planet of the Vampires" (in English). dvd review. San Francisco, CA: IGN Entertainment, Inc.. pp. 1. http://dvd.ign.com/articles/354/354551p1.html. Retrieved 10 April 2012.
- ^ Frentzen, Jeffrey. Cinefantastique Magazine, Volume 8, Number 4, 1979, pgs. 24 - 25. "Alien: It! The Terror from Beyond the Planet of the Vampires"
- ^ Carducci, Mark Patrick and Lovell, Glenn. Cinefantastique Magazine, Volume 9, Number 1, 1979, pgs. 10 - 39. "Making Alien: Behind The Scenes"
- ^ "Alien (1979)". Rotten Tomatoes. http://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/alien/. Retrieved 2008-09-08.
- ^ "Alien: The Director's Cut". Metacritic. http://www.metacritic.com/film/titles/alien?q=alien. Retrieved 2008-09-08.
- ^ McIntee, 42.
- ^ a b c O'Hehir, Andrew (2003-11-01). "The horror, the horror". Salon.com. http://dir.salon.com/story/ent/movies/review/2003/11/01/alien/index.html?CP=IMD&DN=110. Retrieved 2008-09-06.
- ^ Kermode, Mark (2003-10-19). "All Fright on the Night". The Observer. http://www.guardian.co.uk/film/2003/oct/19/features.review. Retrieved 2010-05-29.
- ^ McIntee, 43.
- ^ McIntee, 43–44.
- ^ Badley, Lina (1995). Film, Horror, and the Body Fantastic: Contributions to the Study of Popular Culture. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press. p. 120. ISBN 978-0-313-27523-4.
- ^ Dietle, David (2011-01-02). "Alien: A Film Franchise Based Entirely on Rape". Cracked. http://www.cracked.com/article_18932_alien-film-franchise-based-entirely-rape.html. Retrieved 2011-02-27.
References[link]
- O'Bannon, Dan (Writer), Ronald Shusett (Executive producer/story), Ron Cobb (Conceptual artist), Ivor Powell (Associate producer), Gordon Caroll (Producer), David Giler (Producer), Alan Ladd, Jr. (former President of 20th Century Fox), Ridley Scott (Director), H. R. Giger (Alien designer), Mary Selway (Casting: UK), Sigourney Weaver (Actor: Ripley), Veronica Cartwright (Actor: Lambert), Tom Skerritt (Actor: Dallas), Harry Dean Stanton (Actor: Brett), John Hurt (Actor: Kane), Roger Christian (Art Director), Michael Seymour (Production Designer), Derek Vanlint (Cinematographer), Carlo Rambaldi (Alien head effects), Terry Rawlings (Editor), Jerry Goldsmith (Composer), Brian Johnson (Visual Effects Supervisor), Martin Bower (Supervising modelmaker) (2003-12-02) (Alien Quadrilogy, disc 2). The Beast Within: The Making of Alien (DVD). Los Angeles: 20th Century Fox Home Entertainment, Inc.
- McIntee, David (2005). Beautiful Monsters: The Unofficial and Unauthorized Guide to the Alien and Predator Films. Surrey: Telos Publishing Ltd.. pp. 10–44, 208, 251, 258–260. ISBN 1-903889-94-4.
External links[link]
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