Sigourney Weaver: The Original and Best Alien-Huntress

Watching Prometheus this weekend got me to thinking about Alien, the sequel that isn’t a sequel to Ridley Scott’s lastest deep-space odyssey. And thinking of Alien got me to thinking of how hot Sigourney Weaver was and will always be to me. With a lot of the younger audiences today, they don’t necessarily know just how magnificent an experience it was to meet these leading ladies the first time in a darkened room knowing nothing about them. And Sigourney was one of my major, major movie crushes back in the day.

Tall, lithe and fearless, Sigourney was the perfect leading lady for Ridley Scott’s Sci-fi horror masterpiece, Alien. She had the soulful eyes, the tall, slight yet imposing frame and kick-your-Alien-face-in-attitude at the end that made her an instant star. But it wasn’t until James Cameron’s follow-up, Aliens, that I fell completely head over heels for Sigourney.

Aliens, the adrenaline-fueled Bug Hunt of the last century was my saving grace when I was working as a pot-washer during the summer at a local country club. Back then I was so hungry for money that I’d gobble up every double shift I could get. My saving grace was the three hour break I would take in-between and run across the freeway to catch the matinee of Aliens. Sigourney was there, the uber-Space Mom who defended surrogate-daughter Newt against all Alien threats – then went back in for more to destroy all Momma-Aliens kids. And the epic battle scene where she straps on the exo-skeleton front-loader and goes all womano-a-alieno is still one of the hottest kick-your-ass heroine vs alien scenes ever to be shot! I mean, I went back every day and watched Sigourney for three weeks straight! That’s how much I loved the portrayal of Ripley and Sigourney at the height of her powers.

Prometheus is a different movie from Aliens and Alien. Principally, there aren’t the action scenes and motivation that the original Ripley had to wipe out the Alien before they destroy everything she loves. And that’s the difference when you’re talking about a star-role that defines a career as broad-reaching and diverse as Sigourney has had. She was born to play Ripley. Ripley could not have been played by anyone else. Simply put, she will always be remembered as a sexy, fierce feminist from the future who saved us from a terrible fate, over and over again. And there’s nothing sexier than that.

Charlize Theron: Beautiful to the Bone

Charlize Theron plays the evil queen in this weekend’s SNOW WHITE AND THE HUNTSMAN. And make no mistake, Charlize is the star of this movie. She is so beautiful and gets so much screen time, the movie should really be called THE EVIL QUEEN. Now I know why she was cast in the role, because she carries the film to a higher level as Charlize has done with most of the motion pictures she’s been in. Her beauty and talent is always center stage, whether she’s playing a queen, heroine, comedienne or monster.

Charlize’s stunning good looks have always threatened to overshadow her acting chops. My first blush with the actress was 2 DAYS IN THE VALLEY co-starring James Spader. Charlize is very young, very hot and in one love scene very naked. One of her talents beyond the obvious is that she will give everything to a movie role – even if it calls for looking ugly in front of the camera. Her Oscar-winning portrayal of a female serial-killer in MONSTER was an acting tour de force. Charlize was virtually unrecognizable in the part, but it wasn’t so much make-up and prosthetics than her ability to lose herself in a character. I was stunned when I saw the movie – as was virtually everyone who went in expecting to see the beautiful blonde and came out in awe of her talent.

Charlize tried on another challenging role this year with the very funny YOUNG ADULT. Again, she carried the movie with her portrayal of a developmentally-arrested woman who returns to her small town to reclaim her old flame – even though he’s married and has a baby. Once again, Charlize was playing off her glamor and arresting good looks to comedic effect. But the role seemed ill-fitted for Charlize, when you consider how funny she is naturally. Diablo Cody’s stylized dialogue seemed forced compared to when I’ve seen Charlize ad-libbing on Saturday Night Live and on FUNNY OR DIE skits where she is not only gorgeous but hilarious at the same time. Actually, these shorts were a revelation and made me fall in love with Charlize all over again. I highly recommend you check them out if you are remotely infatuated with the statuesque actress.

Charlize is at the end of the day a true movie star. Her looks are arresting, her talent awe-inspiring and her courage before the camera admirable. I think there are very few roles circling Hollywood these days that she could not tackle and win over an audience. She did this in SNOW WHITE, but once again the material was sub-par compared to Charlize’s amazing performance. How do I know this? Because whenever she isn’t on screen, I find myself sitting there in the dark waiting for her to return. I want her in every scene, because when she’s not the movie drags simply due to her absence. And that’s how I can tell when a woman is more than the sum of her individual parts. That’s how I know Charlize is and always will be beautiful to the bone.

Noomi Rapace: The New Swedish Sphinx

Noomi is beautiful. Noomi is strong. She inherits the legacy of Garbo on her own terms. Her animal magnetism brought her to international stardom the same way Garbo’s did. The big difference is Garbo never kicked anybody’s ass. She shot people, sure. But lighting them on fire? No so much. Still, The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo had a vulnerability to her. Lisbeth Salander was a complex character. Her pathos was purely and utterly perfect to the times in which she exists. And nobody (sorry, Miss Mara) could touch Noomi’s performance – especially in the first movie.

Now Noomi is in America and fluent in English ( a lot faster than Garbo did, maybe because Garbo made silent movies when she first hit our shores). Noomi has been in the Sherlock Holmes piece of crap, yet came up smelling like a rose. But her true American star turn will be in Ridley Scott’s Prometheus. And I think she’s going to be HUGE. Like, Ripley in Aliens huge. That’s a lot of pressure for any actress, but not Noomi. She’s got such a work ethic and professionalism – I really think she could pull off any role she set her mind to. Maybe someday she’ll tackle the most demanding role imaginable and play the original Swedish Sphinx – Garbo. Now that I have to see!!