Review: Aliens (1986)

“They're coming outta the walls. They're coming outta the goddamn walls!” – Private Hudson (Bill Paxton)

Director: James Cameron

Writers: Dan O’Bannon and Ronald Shusett (Characters), David Giler and Walter Hill (Story), James Cameron (Story and Screenplay)

Producer: Gale Ann Hurd

Studio: 20th Century Fox

Major Stars: Sigourney Weaver, Michael Biehn, Lance Henriksen, Paul Reiser, Bill Paxton

James Cameron can make overblown crap like Titanic and come off like an arrogant jerk, but I’ll always love the guy because he gave us Aliens. It’s one of those films that makes you forgive the foibles and flaws of anything else that director does.

Do I have to go into detail about just why this is one of the best movies ever made, let alone sci-fi movies? Aliens is a perfect blend of suspense, action and horror that locks you in from the start and never gives your attention a chance to wane or your eyes to wander.

For the 14 people who haven’t seen it, Aliens picks up where the original left off, with Ripley (Weaver) floating through space in her lifeboat after destroying the Nostromo and the Alien that had come on board. She is picked up and brought to Gateway Station, orbiting Earth. There she finds out 57 years have passed and her employers (Weyland-Yutani) have lost contact with a colony on the planet LV-426. That is the planet Ripley’s original ship visited 57 years ago and where it picked up the Alien.

From there the film becomes a rescue mission; Ripley is assigned as an adviser to a squad of Marines being sent to LV-426 to find the colonist. Going with them is a Weyland-Yutani rep named Burke (Reiser). They reach the planet and quickly discover everything has gone horribly, horribly wrong. Then things go horribly, horribly wrong for them and the film shifts to a survival story; the rescue group has to get off-planet before the power system for the colony goes critical and kills them all in an explosion.

That’s part of what makes Aliens great; it changes mid-stream into a different story and re-captures your interest. It is just a really satisfying movie. The actions scenes are great. The atmosphere is creepy. The actors do a great job with the story. And it is well-written; with an antagonist like the Alien, it is easy to make them too powerful or to over-compensate and make the heroes too powerful. Cameron did a nice job recognizing that Ripley and the Marines could beat the Aliens, but they’d have to be very resourceful and lucky to do so. It makes the payoff at the end that much more satisfying.

And the tension…One of the smartest things they did in Aliens was use those hand-held movement trackers. There is one scene where they barricade themselves in a room and Private Hudson (Paxton) is tracking the Aliens coming towards their position. He calls the distance as they get closer, but they don’t see or hear the Aliens. Hudson is finally calling a distance that would mean they’re in the room. The tension is absolute at this point; my back still gets tense and I’ve see this film more times than I can count. Everyone looks up at the air vents. Corporal Hicks (Biehn) pokes his head up there to take a peek and...chaos.

Let's Talk About Whisky: The Macallan 12

I didn't really start drinking whiskey of any sort until my mid-20s. Until that point it was beer, vodka and rum ... your usual college-age triumvirate of memory-impairing liquids. But after graduation and moving to Boston (and getting a job with some actual disposable income), I started drinking Jameson.

Jameson* is still a favorite of mine. It's a perfectly drinkable Irish whiskey. Well-done year after year, it is a great "gateway" to the more intense Irish whiskeys like the Redbreast 15 or the Bushmills 16.

In my 30s I finally moved into Scotch single malts. And one of the first I had was the Macallan 12. It was also the last time I had it until I bought a bottle a few weeks ago. Ideally, the Macallan 12 should perform the same job as Jameson. They're only about five feet away from one another on a supermarket shelf. They occupy a similar price point. The Macallan 12 should be the Scotch that brings new people into trying single malts.

And yet a decade went between me trying the Macallan 12 the first time and now. The whisky that finally brought me in was, of all things, the Talisker 10. A great single malt, but not one you would give to a first-time whisky drinker. But that is neither here nor there.

The Macallan 12 is not a bad single malt. But for me, it's not exactly good either. I'm not one to talk about "noses" and "palates" and all that. But I just felt the sherry taste really overwhelmed the entire experience. And the finish was very, very, harsh. I don't know if I would go as far as to say it is bitter, but it's not enjoyable.

And this is a problem because to non-whisky drinkers one of the few names that may be known to them is Macallan. Because they see it on the top supermarket shelf along with Laphroaig and Glenmorangie. And odds are that when someone wants to try a Scotch single malt for the first time, a Macallan 12 will be selected quite a few times.

And if my first taste of whisky is harsh on my tongue and makes me think I should have just bought a bottle of Sandeman Armada Oloroso instead ... that's not going to make me seek out other single malts.

My Five Favorite Films From...1994

Honorable Mention – Natural Born Killers: I have a story to tell about this film but I will save it for another time. Very intense, bloody and off-the-charts nuts, but it’s well-made and definitely worth seeing.

5. Hoop Dreams: Even now I think this stands as one of the better documentaries of the past 20 years or so. It was a sin against common sense and general decency that it wasn’t nominated for an Academy Award that year.

4. Clerks: To many this is still Kevin Smith’s best movie*. I think it holds up as one of the better comedies of my generation. The sequel…not so much.

3. The Shawshank Redemption: If this was a list about quality, this would be first in a cakewalk. The best adaptation of a Stephen King story ever**. Still amazes me whenever I watch it.

2. Léon (The Professional): A huge sleeper film that caught everyone by surprise and is now recognized by many as one of the better movies ever made***. Not a down moment the entire movie. And it still amazes me that this was Natalie Portman’s first film. Who acts like that their first time out?

Why am I Subsidizing Boner Pills?

In the wake of five men on the Supreme Court deciding that corporations, provided they are "closely held", can have religious preferences, the scene is set for some bad things to happen.

First bad thing: this is another "one-off" decision by the conservative wing of the Supreme Court to get a result that following precedent would have denied them. Just like Bush v. Gore, it is an on-the-fly decision tailored to get the result they want. The Hobby Lobby case will not apply to all corporations, and (according to the judges) not even all health care options. Just 16 different kinds of contraception for women who happen to work for "closely-held" corporations.

And yes, it's all of them. One of the arguments after the decision was that the ruling only applied to the four kinds of contraception that Hobby Lobby supporters called "abortifacents". Their use of the term, unlike actual science, is more of a pseudo-scientific mumbo-jumbo catch-all word wrapped up in the Shroud of Turin. It has less to do with worrying about an egg smaller than the point of a needle and more about their need to go all Helen Lovejoy:



Yes, won't somebody think of the children? Because with decisions like this, our children are going to grow up in a very fucked up society.

Second bad thing: "Closely-held" corporations are a lot more prevalent than you think. According to this piece in the Wall Street Journal, up to 90% of American companies qualify as "closely-held".

The Internal Revenue Service defines a closely held company as a corporation that has more than 50% of the value of its outstanding stock directly or indirectly owned by five or fewer individuals at any time during the last half of the tax year. It also cannot be a personal-service corporation.

Massive corporations like Mars Inc. and Cargill Inc. actually qualify as "closely-held" companies. Those two companies alone employ over 200,000 people.

Now, will all these companies follow Hobby Lobby and discriminate against women and their health-care choices? Likely not. Least of which because it makes your company look ignorant, backwards and ridiculous.

But now there is a legal stamp of approval to do something like this. It creates a constant sense of concern for women because now they could lose a part of their health care.

Third bad thing: There is no guarantee this stops here. Remember the first bad thing about conservative court members trying to limit this religious exemption? There is no guarantee that will happen. Justice Ginsberg, in a stinging dissent, made it clear that the Court had entered some very dangerous territory.

Approving some religious claims while deeming others unworthy of accommodation could be 'perceived as favoring one religion over another,' the very 'risk the [Constitution's] Establishment Clause was designed to preclude.

"The court, I fear, has ventured into a minefield."

And it has. Now that the Court established that a corporation can have religious beliefs, trying to tell a closely-held corporation run by Jehovah's Witnesses that they have to cover transfusions is going to be a rough sell. And in the end, I don't see how the Court could make them do it because of the Establishment Clause.

In short, because Alito, Scalia and the other three are scared of vaginas, we're going to have a Constitutional crisis sometime in the next 10 years or so over this topic. Thanks a lot, guys.

But really, I just want to know one thing...

Why am I subsidizing boner pills?

Okay Climate Change Deniers, Here's Your Chance to Make $10,000

My suggestion, though, is that you don't spend it before you win it. Because the chance you actually win this $10,000 is very, very, very...hell, it's zero. The chance you win this money is zero.

Despite the scientific proof, the overwhelming scientific proof that human-instigated climate change is real, there are some ignorant people out there who refuse to believe it. Unfortunately, a good number of these ignorant fools are Republicans in the federal government.

Anyway, this refusal to acknowledge fact has some very real repercussions. Rising tides, drought, disrupted weather patterns...oh, and the end of our way of life as we know it today. That also happens down the road. But none of that matters to these brave deniers of truth. For reasons that usually go "Obama...UN...socialism...no freedom!!!"

Well, one scientist is now giving these fools the chance to profit.

Outraged by the unsavory tactics of climate change deniers, physicist Christopher Keating says he'll give $10,000 to anyone who can use the scientific method to prove that human-instigated climate change isn't real.

Keating has been involved in one way or another with climate change for the past three decades. He's been a professor of physics for over 20 years and has taught at the U.S. Naval Academy and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy.

Keating taught at Annapolis and New London? Well, there goes the "He's a god-hating liberal" argument out the door. That's going to put these deniers in a tough spot before they even start.

Actually, there are two prizes. $10,000 to anyone who can "prove — via the scientific method — that anthropogenic climate change is not real". In other words, simply saying "It used to be cold a long time ago. Humans exhale CO2 - how can it be bad??" isn't going to cut it.

But if that is too heavy of a lift, Keating will give you a grand to "anyone who can provide any scientific evidence at all that it isn't real."

C'mon deniers!! You talk all the time about all this "evidence" that disproves man-made climate change. But it's ignored or suppressed or what have you. Now's your chance! Make a grand and show this remarkably-qualified scientist that he's wrong.

Something tells me that Dr. Keating's money is safe.

Oh, and on a completely unrelated topic, half of the US is in drought right now. Sure that has nothing to do with climate change.