"Aliens" wins 8 Saturn Awards 1987

Bill Paxton got a great birthday present as he was awarded a Saturn Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Private Hudson in Aliens on his 32nd birthday, at the annual ceremony held May 17, 1987.  Aliens was nominated for 11 Saturn Awards, tied with Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home.  Aliens walked away with 8 awards, and Star Trek only one.  Which is a shame because I like Star Trek IV.  It's one of my favorite Star Trek movies.

Besides Paxton's win, Aliens also won Best Science Fiction Film, Best Director for James Cameron, Best Actress for Sigourney Weaver, Best Supporting Actress for Jenette Goldstein, Best Performance by a Younger Actor for Carrie Henn, Best Writing for James Cameron, and Best Special Effects for Stan Winston, Robert Skotak, and Dennis Skotak.

Michael Biehn was nominated for Best Actor (totally deserved it).  Aliens also was nominated for Best Costumes, and Best Make-up.

"Alien 3" released 1992

Alien 3, released May 22, 1992, is the third installment of the Alien franchise, and just might be the worst of them, IMHO.  It was featured on a youtube.com channel as one of the top 10 movies that pissed off their audiences in the first scene.

Sigourney Weaver reprises her role as Ellen Ripley, and the movie takes place only days or weeks after the events Aliens.  A malfunction aboard the military ship causes the life pods containing Ripley, Hicks and Newt, to be ejected.  They crash-land on a prison colony planet.  And the aliens arrive on the same escape pod and begin to wreak havoc.

Michael Biehn (Corporal Hicks) found of that his character was written out of the third movie and so he refused to have anything to do with the film, even not allowing them to use his image. Carrie Henn (Newt) probably could not have recreated her role, since there were six years between movies, but only weeks between the events in the movies.

Alien 3 was nominated for an Academy Award, for Best Visual Effects.

"WALL-E" wins Oscar for Best Animated Feature Film 2009

WALL-E, one of my all-time favorite movies, won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature Film at the 81st ceremony February 22, 2009.  It received five more nominations: Best Original Screenplay, Best Original Score, Best Original Song, Best Sound Editing and Best Sound Mixing.  Andrew Stanton directed, wrote the story and the screenplay.  

Sigourney Weaver provided the voice of the Axiom's computer.

"Alien" released 1979

Ridley Scott's horror classic Alien was released into theatres June 22, 1979.  Its legacy is one of the most successful science fiction/horror franchises in history.  It starred Tom Skerritt (favorite), Sigourney Weaver (big favorite), and Veronica Cartwright (favorite). 

It won an Academy Award for Best Visual Effects.  It was nominated for Best Art Direction - Set Direction. Its soundtrack by Jerry Goldsmith was nominated for a Grammy and a Golden Globe.

Alien won Saturn Awards for Best Science Fiction Film, Best Direction for Ridley Scott and Best Supporting Actress for Veronica Cartwright.  Sigourney Weaver was nominated for Best Actress.

In 2002, it was selected by the Library of Cngress for preservation in the National Film Registry.  The American Film Institute named it as the 7th best science fiction film.

My favorite movies 1979

My favorite movies from 1979, another year with some great films, too many to choose just one so I picked several favorites and one guilty pleasure.

Alien starring Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt and Veronica Cartwright.  It was the first horror movie that I sat through and enjoyed.  It created a monster (no pun intended) as now I enjoy horror films.



Star Trek: The Motion Picture starring everybody from the original series.  We had waited so long for a movie version of our favorite television show and finally got this.  Not bad but it wasn't good.  I often suspect they got someone who didn't like Star Trek to write the script.



1941 starring everybody.  I love this movie even though it's generally considered to be not funny.  And it's the only non-science fiction movie on this list!  Wow!



Walt Disney's The Black Hole starring Maximillian Schell, Yvette Mimieux, Tony Perkins and Ernest Borgnine.  I think Disney tried to capitalize on the whole Star Wars trend, and this was the result.  However, I like the non-Roddenberry, non-Lucas approach to space travel/exploration.



Guilty pleasure: Meteor starring Sean Connery and Natalie Wood.  I know it was a huge star-studded flop but I'm a sucker for disaster movies.  Now it's campy fun!

Remembering John Hurt (1940-2017)

2017 seems to be off in a sprint to catch up or outdo 2016 with celebrity deaths.  Just two days after we lose Mary Tyler Moore, outstanding actor John Hurt passed away yesterday from pancreatic cancer.  I was first introduced to John Hurt in the movie Alien, in which he starred with Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerrit, Veronica Cartwright, Harry Dean Stanton and Ian Holm, a stellar cast.

He played a gay policeman in Partners with Ryan O'Neal.  It's interesting to watch this trailer after 35 years, seeing the gay stereotypes all in one 2 1/2 minute clip.  Hurt played his role with a touching vulnerability that was probably alien to most audiences at that time.

"Aliens" released 1986

One of the best movies of all times and one of my all-time favorites, "Aliens" was released July 18, 1986.  This is one of the few times the sequel surpassed the original movie.  Reading the trivia notes on imdb.com, it's amazing this movie got made at all.  The crew in London apparently didn't like James Cameron and was openly hostile.  It took quite a lot to get Sigourney Weaver to agree to make the film.  Various crew members were fired.  Wow!

However, the result is fantastic!  Just don't watch it on Blu-Ray, because it is so hi-def, it loses the other-worldly effect and looks like actors on a sound stage.  Stick with the plain ol' DVD version.

This time, it's war!

Happy birthday, Sigourney Weaver!

Sigourney Weaver, one of the most beautiful and talented actresses ever, celebrates her birthday today, October 8.  She is one of the few actresses to receive an Oscar nomination for her performance in a horror movie (Aliens, 1986), one of my favorites of all time.

My other favorites: Alien, Ghostbusters, Galaxy Quest, Wall-E, Dave, Heartbreakers and Snow White: A Tale of Terror.

Happy birthday, Sigourney Weaver!

One of my favorite actresses, Sigourney Weaver, celebrates her birthday today!  I never liked horror movies growing up because they gave me such nightmares, but I sat through "Alien" and loved it!  Its sequel "Aliens" is one of my all-time favorite movies.

I love her comedies as well as her drama roles.  Check out this scene from "GalaxyQuest"!

http://youtu.be/hthl28SEGfk