Word: star
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Alien may prove to be Hollywood's most efficient moneymaking machine of the summer. Technically slick and commercially singleminded, this film attempts to crossbreed the scare tactics of Jaws with the sci-fi hardware of Star Wars. The result is a cinematic bastard, and a pretty mean bastard at that. Alien contains a couple of genuine jolts, a barrage of convincing special effects and enough gore to gross out children of all ages. What is missing is wit, imagination and the vaguest hint of human feeling. Luckily for Alien's creators, such ingredients are not really essential...
Still, it is depressing to watch an expensive, crafty movie that never soars beyond its cold desire to score the big bucks. Unlike Jaws, Alien does not use stylistic cunning to excite the audience; it just shovels on the mayhem. Unlike Star Wars, Alien has no affection for past movies of its genre; it just rips them off. Stripped of its futuristic setting and pretensions, this film is an oldtime B monster picture. Alien might just as well be about a huge scorpion loose in a haunted house, circa 1953. While the murder sequences are executed with all the realism...
...alien's attacks. Scott's allusions to other hit movies do not reflect well on his own. Alien features an all-knowing computer called Mother that is no match in humor or malevolence for Hal in 2001. Though the spaceship's interior recalls both 2001 and Star Wars, the audience never learns enough about its array of gadgetry or the overall layout of its various chambers. Alien, like Invasion of the Body Snatchers, also features some nasty extraterrestrial pods, but there is no social commentary beyond the usual warning against the evils of heartless technology...
...idea is simple: dump the puck to the opposition's star defenseman in his own end and make him handle it until he wears himself out. The approach worked against Orr, and with two Rangers dogging his every move, it worked against Robinson. He made two mistakes that allowed goals and-rightfully, he said later-was booed by the Canadiens' fans...
...Ballet Star Mikhail Baryshnikov journeyed to Yale last year to watch his friend Soviet Poet Joseph Brodsky receive an honorary degree. This year Misha was back to receive an honorary doctorate of fine arts. He very nearly did not make it, however. His plane was diverted to Bridgeport because New Haven was fogged in. Baryshnikov had to be rushed to the campus by police escort, arriving barely in time to hear Yale President A. Bartlett Giamatti declare: "You have brought classical dance to millions as you made your grands jetés into their lives. With the courage of your...