The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 3, Ed. 1 Friday, August 24, 1979 Page: 8 of 12
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Alien: Intergalactic garbage
Alien
Written by Dan O'Bannon
Directed by Ridley Scott
This summer, children are once
again being treated to a sci-fi
adventure that titillates their small
emotions just as it ignores their
tiny minds. Despite its profoundly
angst-rid&en message ("In space
no one can hear you scream"),
Alien is doing well with the same
low-mentality bracket that made
Star Wars and Close Encounters
of the Third Kind such financial
successes. Although I'm getting
quite fed up with all this outer-
space drivel, I'll hold back a full-
scale frontal assault on that sub-
genre (and I do mean sub) until a
more appropriate target files past.
(Alien is actually a hybrid: it's a
horror film transposed into a
science-fiction setting.)
The story goes like this. There's
this humongous spaceship, see,
and the crew is real easy-going,
sort of. Well, they stop on this
grimy planet—I can't remember
why, but I don't think it matters
too much—where one of the guys
gets attacked by this thing that
looks kinda like an Alaskan king
crab that sticks to his face.
Anyway, he finally dies when the
baby monster explodes from his
Take a break and come to the
Texas Baptist Student Convention
September 21-23,1979
Moody Coliseum, SMU • Dallas
Featuring: Sherman Andrus, James Dunn, Doug Ezell,
Ann Kiemel, Leighton Ford
guts (which is a real neat scene
'cause there's lotsa blood and
internal organs and stuff).
So the whole crew starts to look
all over for this monster, except
that they always split up and get
killed when they're alone—which I
thought was pretty stupid but they
musta had reasons 'cause they're
all grown-ups. So finally there's
just one girl left, and she abandons
the ship in this little space module.
And just when she thought she was
safe...well, I won't spoil the ending
for you 'cause you really oughta
see it 'cause it's a really neat movie
and everybody's gonna have Alien
T-shirts and lunch boxes and
everything when school starts this
fall.
This simplistic plot (understate-
ment?) is further enhanced by
seveial stunningly senseless
devices. One of these involves a
cat, which for some unexplained
reason seems to be of vital
importance to the entire crew.
Each time the story begins to
falter, the script calls for this space
kitten to get lost, thereby
Allrnan Brothers
Joan Armatrading
Argent
Joan Baez
The Band
The Beatles
Be Bop Deluxe
Jeff Beck
Blondie
Blue Oyster Cult
David Bowie
Brand X
David B'omberg
Jackson Browne
Bill Bruford
Roy Buchanan
Cafe Jacques
John Cale
Camel
The Cars
Harry Chap in
The Clash
Jimmy Cliff
Bruce Cockburn
Chick Corea
Elvis Costello
Crack (he Sky
Cream
Creedence C R
Creme/Godley
C.S.N. & Y
Devo
Al DiMeola
Dire Straits
Dixie Dregs
The Doors
Les Dudek
Bob Dvlan
EL P
Brian Eno
John Fahey
Fleetwood Mac
Focus
Dan Fogelberg
Steve Forbert
Robert Fripp
Peter Gabriel
Rory Gallagher
Jerry Garcia
J Geils Band
Genesis
Gentle Giant
Gong
Steve Goodman
Grateful Dead
Guess Who
Ario Guthrie
Steve Hackett
Jan Hammer
Peter Hammill
Happy the Man
Roy Harper
John Hartford
Richie Havens
Heart
Jimi Hendrix
Horslips
Joe Jackson
Jade Warrior
James Gang
K.-"th jarrett
'« Of Airplan<
Jethro Tull
Billy Joel
Elton John
Jams Joplin
Journey
Steve Khan
Carole King
King Crimson
The Kinks
Moody Blues
Van Morrison
Mott the Hoople
Randy Newman
Nova
Danny O'Keefe
Oregon
Robert Palmer
Graham Parker
it takes music
to be
a music station:
Leo Kottke
Peter Lang
Led Zeppelin
Gordon Lightfoot
Little Feat
Nils Lofgren
Nick Lowe
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Don McLean
Mahogany Rush
Mahavishnu Orchestra
Manfred Mann
Phil Manzanera/801
John Mayall
Pat Metheny
Steve Miller
Joni Mitchell
Ronnie Montrose
Alan Parsons Project
°assport
"om Paxton
Michael Perlitch
Shawn Phillips
Pink Floyd
PFM
Jean Luc Ponty
Iggy Pop
Pousette-Dart Band
John Prine
Procol Harem
Quicksilver M S
Lou Reed
Renaissance
Scarlet Rivera
Tom Robinson Band
The Rolling Stones
Roxv Music
Todd Rundgren
Rush
Shake Russell
Santana
Boz Scaggs
Bob Seger
Simon & Garfunkel
Patti Smith
Southside Johhny &
Spirit
Bruce Springsteen
Sjeeleye Span
Steely Dan
Cat Stevens
Al Stewart
Supertramp
Synergy
Tangerine Dream
Talking Heads
10 cc
Ten Years After
Traffic
Robin Trower
The Tubes
U.K.
Ultravox
Van der Graff Generator
Vangelis
Townes Van Zandt
Bob Marley
Loudon Wainwright
Tom Waits
Weather Report
The Who
The Paul Winter Consort
Wishbone Ash
Woodstock
Yes
Frank Zappa
917fm stereo
ktru
radio free rice
THE WORLD'S LARGEST NIGHTCLUB
GILLEY'S Presents...
August 25 Johnny Bush
September 1 Joe Sun
DANCE SEVEN NIGHTS A WEEK
FOOD €f DRINKS
it
Alienated crew: guaranteed to make you scream.
necessitating a search party
which, in turn, falls prey to the Evil
that lurks on board. As the last
survivor (Sigourney Weaver)
struggles against time (in the form
of the ship's self-destruct
mechanism) and the monster, she
puts e\ erything on hold in order to
go back and find the cat! Shades of
one of those old giant-spiders-
stalking-naive-teenagers flicks of
the 50's.
The cast of Alien offers
moments of relief from all this
inanity. Yaphet Kotto is good
when he's jovial, and great when
he's pissed off. Still, one gets the
feeling he doesn't belong in a film
like Alien. He's too earthv to be
out in space. He deserves better.
Sigourney Weaver does a fairly
respectable Jane Fonda
impression after she becomes
captain of the spaceship by default.
(Whether or not Jane Fonda is a
desirable model for imitation is left
up to the reader.) Ian Holm plays
such an obvious bad guy that when
he's finally unmasked it almost
comes as a surprise to the viewer,
who, up to that point, had doubted
the filmmaker could be so crassly
uninventive.
One element of the film that
might warrant praise is the look of
the sets. They are not pristine a la
2001: the interior of the spacecraft
seems to need dusting, the visors
on the crew's helmets are dirty. But
in the low-budget context of Alien,
one cannot be sure if this was
intentional or not.
The Dolby soundtrack which
accompanies the film in several
theatres just makes the whole
unpleasant mess a little more
grating to the senses. Make no
mistake about it, Alien is one of
those painfully bad movies during
which you find yourself wondering
what motivated you to inflict such
torment upon your own person.
— F. Brotzen
mtmm
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The Rice Thresher, August 24, 1979, page 8
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Muller, Matthew. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 67, No. 3, Ed. 1 Friday, August 24, 1979, newspaper, August 24, 1979; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245409/m1/8/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.