Aliens

Aliens (1986). Director James Cameron gives Alien the blockbuster treatment, pumping it full of action and his signature brand of dumb, occasionally successful humor. Cameron brings back Sigourney Weaver, the survivor of the first film, this time accompanying a squadron of Marines to the planet where her ill-fated crew discovered the alien eggs in the first movie. That planet has since been colonized by humans, blissfully unaware of the lurking danger. The expected aliens vs. people action ensues. There’s not as much subtlety this time around, and the film works you over pretty thoroughly. But Cameron also humanizes Ellen Ripley by awakening her maternal instinct: she discovers an orphaned girl (Carrie Henn) hiding from the aliens in an air vent. As big and dumb as much of it is, Aliens is an effective thriller with at least a few terrific little nuggets of dialogue; its shortcomings (including a murkiness that sometimes makes it impossible to tell what’s happening onscreen) are bolstered by Sigourney Weaver’s command of the screen. And the film ratchets up the distrust of capitalism that the first film introduced, by introducing a corporate sleazeball (Paul Reiser) who wants the mission to salvage some of those slimy aliens for profit. (Weaver gets to say the film’s best line to him: “I don’t know which species is worse: you don’t see them trying to f*** each other over for a percentage.” With Michael Biehn, Henriksen, Jeanette Goldstein, Bill Paxton, and William Hope. Written by the director. Music by James Horner. Produced by Cameron’s Terminator collaborator Gale Ann Hurd.

The Right Stuff

As three-hour-long epics go, The Right Stuff (1983) is a pretty good one, bolstered by the humanized performances of a slew of talented actors portraying the men and women involved in America's race against the Russians to get outer space. The film--which was written and directed by Philip Kaufman and adapted from Tom Wolfe's best-selling book--finds a surprising balance in a story so charged with cultish nationalism. I've never been particularly interested in planes or pilots, and when I lived in Orlando, was always blasé about the goings-on at NASA just forty-five minutes away at Cape Canaveral. When people would talk excitedly about the latest rocket launch, I felt bored. This film shows exactly how exciting and meaningful it was to be a part of the space race.

As a director, Kaufman is one of the best to come out of the 70s, and The Right Stuff should probably have been his piéce de résistance, except that it wasn't successful at the box office, barely breaking even (or not) depending on which budget calculation you go with. (It was made for around 20 million, and grossed around 20 million.) Kaufman had already established himself as a fine director with the impressive 1978 remake of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. The Right Stuff isn't as canny as that film, but it's certainly as well-made and well-acted, and tries very hard to show us the many perspectives at play during this little chunk of big history. And it has a sense of humor. The grandiosity that Kaufman puts on the screen is always accompanied by a wink.

The film begins in 1947 at a military air base in the California desert, where Chuck Yeager (Sam Shepard) determines to break the "sound barrier," a phrase that essentially meant doom for an aircraft once it reached a certain altitude. Yeager's accomplishment (spoiler alert: he breaks it) sets in motion the events of the film which take place into the 1960s when the seven "chosen" astronauts make their various orbits into space. One of Kaufman's most adept accomplishments as director is his seamless merging of actual documentary footage of news coverage with fictionalized footage of the actors. In that sense, The Right Stuff often feels like a plucky documentary about the space age. It would have been propaganda in the hands of a less literate filmmaker. 

One of Kaufman's best instincts as director is to consider the point-of-view of the pilot's wives. On one hand, this story is every bit a tale of male achievement in a very traditional power structure, but Kaufman has a sense of realism--not to mention compassion--for the "women behind the men." Is the film accurate in its portrayal of the men and their wives? That isn't for me to say. But as a piece of narrative, The Right Stuff succeeds in multitudinous ways at being both honest and insightful about marital relations in the military and the American obsession with a kind of mythologized machismo. What's so genius is that the film mixes its criticism with its reverence in a way that feels genuine. And yet it's always sure-footed. Kaufman wants to give us a ra-ra American epic, but he wants us to think about it too, and layers his criticisms in subtle ways that allow us to come across them on our own. Otherwise it would be preachy or condescending.

As John Glenn, Ed Harris--plucked from cameo roles and TV by George Romero in the 1981 knights-on-motorcycles indie film Knightriders--shows what he's made of as an actor here. Harris is the kind of all-American actor who's very easy to root for, and his performance as Glenn paints him as a thoughtful man who took very seriously his unexpected new role as a public figure. The equally fine supporting cast includes: Dennis Quaid, Lance Henriksen, Barbara Hershey, Scott Glenn, Fred Ward, Veronica Cartwright, Pamela Reed, Charles Frank (as Scott Carpenter), David Clennon, and Donald Moffat (as Lyndon Johnson).

Dog Day Afternoon

Dog Day Afternoon (1975) is a bank robbery movie that's so intense you start to feel stressed out for the hostages, as though you were a hostage too. Al Pacino, post-Godfather I and II, gives a smashing performance as Sonny, the Brooklyn bank robber who's trying to get enough money so his lover, Leon (Chris Sarandon), can get a sex-change operation. The question that hangs over the proceedings, as Sonny's robbery is stalled by the arrival of seemingly every cop and FBI officer in New York, is just how crazy is Sonny? And, how crazy is his partner, Sal (John Cazale), who seems like a grenade, waiting to explode.

What's so funny about this movie is how badly Sonny and Sal bungle their robbery, which, as the movie poster reads, should have lasted for a few minutes, but turned into a 12-hour ordeal, full of bullshit negotiations. Sonny's gullible though, and under too much pressure to think clearly (he has a considerably complicated home life, between his wife and kids, his demanding mother, and his obsession for Leon, who's trying to get away from him, to the point of several failed suicide attempts and subsequent hospitalization). And probably Leon is unknowingly hungry for the attention he receives throughout the day and into the night. And no bank robber ever had friendlier, more accommodating hostages. They like him, strange as that sounds, and they're not really that scared of him. They even criticize his lack of organization skills in carrying off the robbery. But the humor is mixed with a real sense of tense fear, and the looming dread of the inevitable showdown between the robbers and the police. 

Director Sidney Lumet and screenwriter Frank Pierson have fun exploring what kind of a circus a drawn-out bank robbery turns into when the media shows up, spectators flock to the scene, and the criminal becomes a sort of revolutionary, a hero standing up against the establishment. No one really even cares what, if anything, Sonny represents, other than rebellion. Even the hostages, for the most part, seem keen to like him, even if it's because they're under such extraordinary pressure. They seem to be having a good time, as though Sonny had involved them in a TV drama, not an actual robbery.

With Charles Durning as a detective, James Broderick as an FBI agent, Lance Henriksen as the agent driving the getaway car, and Penelope Allen, Sully Boyar, and Carol Kane among the bank employees being held hostage. It's loosely based on real events which occurred on August 22, 1972, from an article in Life Magazine written by P.F. Kluge and Thomas Moore, called, "The Boys in the Bank."