Alien (1979) *****

If you could call Alien by another name it could be Alfred Hitchcock Goes To Space. Alien isn’t your typical lost in space film where a group of humans runs into something out there that causes carnage and mayhem. It’s a film about suspense. It’s like Agatha Christie… in orbit.

The bulk of the film takes place aboard the Nostromo, an interstellar mining ship heading back to earth with a full payload. When the crew, suspended in hibernation, is awakened they naturally assume that they are close to home. The thing is that they have actually stopped due to a signal from an unoccupied planet and upon investigation and an accident, the crew may have brought something sinister aboard. As the film progresses it really becomes 10 Little Indians as the crew is knocked off one by one by whatever has come aboard the Nostromo.

Alien is a film that would have never been made before the release of Star Wars. This is the era when sci-fi was hot and this was one in a long line of films set in outer space. It was a saturated market where most films were lost in the tide. Disney had the Black Hole. Hell, James Bond even went into space. The analogy that cream rises to the top applies to eras of milking the gravy train and Alien is that cream. It rose above the other ridiculous fare that followed Lucas’ masterpiece. Ridley Scott could have stolen the Star Wars feel, but he doesn’t. He creates an atmosphere that is steeped more in the thriller genre than sci-fi. This is not a film that mesmerizes with its sights, but puts you on edge with its tension. Who will get it? Where? When?

The cast of Alien is one of the most impressive assembled. Tom Skerritt, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton, Ian Holm, Yaphet Kotto, and John Hurt fill out the crew, but the glimmer of greatness goes to Sigourney Weaver as Ripley. She is essentially the rock that this film holds onto and lives on, almost like the title character itself. She is forever linked to this franchise, but has grown beyond it instead of being buried underneath it. It’s the great cast that pushes this film to pure greatness in cinema.

Alien is essentially one of the watersheds of film, moving the evil alien from being a monster to an intelligent predator that stalks its prey and represents something that is presumed unstoppable. Alien proved that horror could go beyond the typical domains and furthered the idea that science fiction could be an intelligent genre in film, following in the footsteps of 2001 and Star Wars. It wasn’t for kids anymore. Alien is a sci fi masterpiece that has few equals. This is a classic.

Get Him To The Greek (2010) ***1/2

Every once in awhile a movie spawns something that has been called an equel. It’s not a direct sequel, but is slightly connected to another film before it. Not like the off spring, but a cousin. Get Him To The Greek is one of those equels that follows the further exploits of rock front man Aldous Snow (Russell Brand).

When we last saw Aldous he was on the wagon, clean as a newborns bottom. As Get Him To The Greek opens he has tumbled into the gutter with a career that has gone to the toilet. He’s going nowhere. Meanwhile in L.A. a young record executive named Aaron (Jonah Hill) comes up with the idea of having Aldous play the Greek Theater on the tenth anniversary of what apparently was a legendary concert. It’s up to Aaron to get the self destructing rock star to the concert, with a stop over in New York for an appearance on the Today show. The question isn’t whether Aldous will actually play the show but will Aaron survive the rock n’ roll lifestyle of Aldous Snow.

Get Him To The Greek also follows in the tradition of Sarah Marshall by being a raunchy, vulgar laugh fest that still has a little bit of a heart inside of it. When walking into the theater I expected to see a road trip movie where two opposites would find that they have more in common than they thought, hugs, we all feel good, the end. Get Him To The Greek really isn’t like that cliché. True, both characters learn from each other and, as I said, the film does have a heart under all that raunch but it doesn’t feel like a lovefest. There’s a subtle balance between being an adult oriented comedy and a clichéd buddy film. Brand is perfectly cast as a doped up rock star, giving a presence that is almost a mixture between Mick Jagger and Axel Rose. The guy has a stage presence even when not on stage. Hill basically plays a timid version of the character he’s perfected in previous films. Not to play the weight card, but he seems to have a screen persona that’s a cross between John Candy and Chris Farley- laid back at times, yet off his damn rocker when he needs to be. The real surprise was P. Diddy who plays Aaron’s boss Sergio. He seems to get all the best lines with the most memorable being the end of a diatribe about Aldous drug abuse and the fact that British rock stars live forever he screams “Ozzy Osbourne’s going to outlive Miley Cyrus!”

Once again Nicholas Stoller has delivered a comedy that is actually funny. Those are hard to come by and we tend to get only one a year anymore (unless you like romantic comedies, which seem to be a dime a dozen). Get Him To The Greek isn’t quite as funny as The Hangover, but it’s still a riot to watch with a few shocks and surprises along the way.