Aliens (1986)
DIRECTOR: James Cameron
CAST:
Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Carrie Henn, Paul Reiser, Lance Henriksen, Bill Paxton, Jenette Goldstein, William Hope, Mark Rolston, Al Matthews
REVIEW:
Aliens, along with James Cameron’s sci-fi hit five years later, 1991’s Terminator 2: Judgment Day , is both among the best sci-fi action thrillers ever made, and a rare example of a sequel surpassing the original. Continue reading
Witness (1985)
DIRECTOR: Peter Weir
CAST:
Harrison Ford, Kelly McGillis, Lukas Haas, Jan Rubes, Alexander Godunov, Josef Sommer, Danny Glover, Patti LuPone, Brent Jennings, Angus MacInnes
REVIEW:
Witness is billed as a thriller or a crime drama, but that’s just the plot skeleton. What it’s really about at its core is love and longing, and about how the randomness of life can throw two people into contact long enough to fall in love, even if they can never truly be together. Continue reading
The Terminator (1984)
DIRECTOR: James Cameron
CAST:
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Michael Biehn, Linda Hamilton, Paul Winfield, Lance Henriksen, Bess Motta, Rick Rossovich, Earl Boen
REVIEW:
The stars were aligned for the cast and crew that came together to make the original Terminator. Arnold Schwarzenegger, former Mr. Universe, had made his break into the movie business with 1982’s Conan the Barbarian. Together with this and 1986’s Aliens and 1989’s The Abyss (both also directed by James Cameron), Michael Biehn seemed set to become a major star, but never again reached his nearly A-list heights after the 1980s. Linda Hamilton was a relative newcomer (and future, now ex Mrs. James Cameron), and like Biehn, Terminator and its sequel would be the high point of her career. And bringing it all together was a then-unknown filmmaker named James Cameron, who was previously art director for zero-budget B-movie legend Roger Corman, and his previous directorial effort had been the inauspicious Piranha 2: The Spawning. Inspired by two television episodes written by Harlan Ellison (who sued for and later received official credit), the Outer Limits episode “Soldier” (about two time-traveling soldiers who travel back in time to 1964, where they fight to the death), and the Twilight Zone episode “Demon with a Glass Hand” (about a time-traveling robot that looks human), and his own nightmare about a killer robot sent from the future to murder him, Cameron wrote the original story for what became The Terminator while sick and bedridden in Rome. Working alongside him to bring it to fruition was producer (and another ex-wife-to-be) and fellow Corman alum, Gale Anne Hurd. In the hands of this cast and crew, The Terminator exploded from the cult film it was expected to be into a sci-fi/action classic that revolutionized the genre.
Continue readingAlien (1979)
DIRECTOR: Ridley Scott
CAST:
Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, Ian Holm, Veronica Cartwright, Yaphet Kotto, Harry Dean Stanton, John Hurt
REVIEW:
In some ways, Alien could be seen as moving the Halloween-style slasher horror movie into outer space, but its achievement was more than that. While the best-known sci-fi at the time was the fairly lightweight Star Wars and Star Trek, with Alien Ridley Scott looked through the glass darkly. The movie is a dark experience, a slow-moving thriller that gradually and inexorably builds up the suspense until certain scenes and the climax in particular ascend to nerve-wracking tension. It’s the kind of movie that’s dark and harrowing to the extent that it’s questionable to call it conventionally “enjoyable”, but it is undeniably skillful filmmaking that shows a keen understanding of building suspense. Continue reading
Marathon Man (1976)
DIRECTOR: John Schlesinger
CAST:
Dustin Hoffman, Laurence Olivier, Roy Scheider, Marthe Keller, William Devane, Fritz Weaver, Richard Bright, Marc Lawrence
REVIEW:
‘Is it safe?‘ No one who has viewed John Schlesinger’s gritty thriller Marathon Man will soon forget those three simple words, or look at dentists the same way again. Continue reading
Jaws (1975)
DIRECTOR: Steven Spielberg
CAST:
Roy Scheider, Richard Dreyfuss, Robert Shaw, Lorraine Gary, Murray Hamilton
REVIEW:
Dun dun. dun dun. dun dun dun dun dun dun. So begins Jaws, with the instantly recognizable, singularly ominous score from the prolific John Williams and one of the most chillingly memorable prologues in movie history. Continue reading
The Day of The Jackal (1973)
DIRECTOR: Fred Zinnemann
CAST: Edward Fox, Michael Lonsdale, Tony Britton, Derek Jacobi, Cyril Cusack, Ronald Pickup
REVIEW:
Fred Zinnemann’s The Day of The Jackal, adapted from Frederick Forsyth’s 1971 novel of the same name, is a masterfully executed piece of filmmaking methodically setting all its many pieces in motion like a fine watch. Its dry, almost documentary style and slow burn pace might not be appreciated by modern viewers demanding something flashier and more action-oriented (while this is considered a suspense thriller, it’s not an action movie and those who go in expecting such may be disappointed and bored), but for those to whom this kind of movie appeals, it’s hard to imagine this material being more masterfully executed, or an assassination plot and the investigation opposing it being written with more meticulous logic.
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