Alien: The Director's Cut

When Pauline Kael first pronounced the demise of American cinema, she cited Alien as one of the prime suspects in the murder of taste. If only she had lived long enough to see Star Wars—Episode 1: The Merchandising Menace. Actually, while Kael was right in noting that Alien is all about visceral thrills, what she missed was the extreme dedication to film art that director Ridley Scott exhibited. He’s never been big on content, but in terms of form, Alien is perfection. A slow build, an unprecedented menace and the unforgettable chest-burster all broke new ground in horror. That same ground was later tilled into dust by Alien’s imitators, but the original stands up amazingly well in spite of 24 years of rip-offs. The added scenes are nothing special (yes, the "cocoon" scene is there) but they don’t detract from the film either. Actually, if Kael were still with us, I’d ask her to look to the change from Alien to its James Cameron schlock-fest sequel, Aliens, as the exemplar of what went wrong with American cinema. On that point, Alien might be worth seeing as a last gasp attempt to wed art and commerce—before the two broke up and starting dating other people, and then art got herpes and died while commerce went on to get a blonde, trophy wife and a house in Encino.