Harry Dean Stanton

Farewell to a great character actor, and another member of the Nostromo's crew. The title of the post below this is a quote from Brett, the character he portrayed in ALIEN, and today Harry Dean Stanton is gone. With 200 acting credits to his name, he worked with the likes of Carpenter, Scorsese, Coppola, Lynch, Wenders, and many, many more. He was one of a kind. Goodbye Mr. Stanton.

COOL HAND LUKE

TWO-LANE BLACKTOP

ALIEN

ESCAPE FROM NEW YORK

REPO MAN

PARIS, TEXAS

THE LAST TEMPTATION OF CHRIST

WILD AT HEART

TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME

FEAR AND LOATHING IN LAS VEGAS

TWIN PEAKS (2017)

Kitty, kitty, kitty!

Jonesy. Everyone's favourite interstellar scamp. Is it any wonder that he's been the focus of so many ALIEN tributes? After all, the little ginger Tom is Ripley's lucky star. Please enjoy this collection of purrfect artwork.

 

John Hurt

The first crew member of the Nostromo to encounter H.R. Giger's nightmare (in Ash's words, the alien is "Kane's son"), is now the first member of that wonderful ensemble of actors to leave us.

John Hurt was the quintessential character actor. With over 200 credits to his name, and working right up until the end (he'll appear in no less than four movies due out this year), his career spans every genre and a veritable who's who of directors. Imbuing all of his roles with intelligence, dignity and a delicate subtlety of expression, you could always be sure that whatever film he appeared in would be elevated by his presence. I'll miss him greatly.

10 RILLINGTON PLACE

MIDNIGHT EXPRESS

ALIEN

THE ELEPHANT MAN

1984

DEAD MAN

CONTACT

HELLBOY

THE PROPOSITION

V FOR VENDETTA

MELANCHOLIA

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY

ONLY LOVERS LEFT ALIVE

SNOWPIERCER

Sigourney Weaver by Helmut Newton

She may have sung "You are my Lucky Star", but Ellen Ripley is surely the unluckiest warrant officer to ever take a job with Weyland-Yutani.

Below you'll find a series of glamorous fashion shots of the beautiful Ms. Weaver, taken by famed art/kink photographer Helmut Newton. Will we see Ripley one more time in Neil Blomkamp's mooted Alien 5? Is the project even a good idea? Did the jaw-droppingly bad Chappie reveal that Blomkamp is a one-trick pony - a director who only had one great movie (District 9) and another good one (Elysium) in him? All will be revealed in the wake of the success or failure of next year's Alien: Covenant (shooting right here in Sydney as we speak).

Acheron (LV-426)

I'm not really buying into the whole "Alien day" thing, because in the end it's just another marketing ploy. That said, if every April 26 brings us Alien artworks of the standard displayed below, then why am I complaining?

Laurent Durieux's "Alien" is a thing of haunting beauty. I like how he's worked the creature's head into the derelict ship. After seeing that, the whole surrounding landscape becomes suggestive of the xenomorph's form.

Moving from Alien to Aliens, Mark Englert's "should we take a look inside?" is a real stunner too. Lots of cool details in this one. Planet Calpamos and LV-426's two sister moons loom ominously in the sky. Hadley's Hope and the Atmosphere Processing Plant are visible in the distance. Turn the lights out and Newt and her ill-fated family disappear. In the distance the plant's reactor is detonating, and the Sulaco's final dropship can be seen heading for orbit with four desperate survivors aboard. A fifth passenger hitches a ride.

As a bonus here's Englert's previous Alien painting (and a colour variant), "you are my lucky star". The bane of the Nostromo drifts into space* after being blasted off the stern of the Narcissus.

*Here's a question for Alien aficionados: at the end of the film is the Nostromo still within the Zeta Reticuli system, or is it in interstellar space? I've always assumed the ship is still in-system as its crew haven't yet gone into hypersleep.