Alien Resurrection by Joss Whedon

 

(pb; 1997: screenplay)

From the back cover

“This is the real thing: the ultimate insider’s look at the fourth Alien film, Alien Resurrection, the new blockbuster starring Sigourney Weaver and Winona Ryder. You are about to see the film as the stars saw it.

“This studio-authorized edition contains the final script of the film as it appears on the big screen: unexpurgated and unaltered, detailing every live action scene, every chilling minute of suspense, every unforgettable line of dialogue, and every startling special effect from the eagerly awaited fourth film in the most popular sci-fi thriller series of all time.”

 

Review

Whedon’s script is excellent, fast-moving, suspenseful, mood- and character-effective in its word-spare description and dialogue, which left plenty of room for Resurrection’s director to fully flavor the resulting film with their (hopefully) unique vision. In this case, the director was Jean-Pierre Jeunet, known for being artsy and structured (to the point of obvious artifice); also consistent with Jeunet’s style, Resurrection bustles with eccentric, disturbing characters, and visual and aural elements —this made the actual film less great than it might've been. Still, a deft, entertaining and masterful screenplay, one worth owning and learning from (if you’re an aspiring writer of scripts or fiction that is screenplay-friendly).

Alien Resurrection was released stateside on November 26, 1997. Details for its cast and crew on here on Resurrection’s main IMDb page.

Graffiti in the Rubber Room: Writing for My Sanity by Will Viharo

 

(oversized pb; 2023: memoir)

 

Review

Viharo’s “experimental” memoir is an ambitious take on the genre. Framed in chapter-missives to famous musicians (Elvis, Tom Waits), fictional characters (those he created, or played by actors Viharo personally knows) and family, it’s a rambling, intuitive-flow, 462-page** work that may cause those who like tight, focused writing to want to immediately pull their hair out—Viharo says as much, later in the book, but he doesn’t care: his writing here, like much of his recent writings is self-indulgent, something he’s proud of. That’s not to say Graffiti’s not often interesting, as Viharo’s trademark blend of vivid description, clever charm, pulp appreciation, and deeply-personal-to-him references (including said fictional characters and famous folk) makes for a rollercoaster, era-bounce recounting of his surreal brushes with the iconic success he craves (he says as much, a lot) and deserves, given his charm, talent, and dedication to that those endeavors. His growth as a unique individual and creative being adds heart and memorability to his work as well. That he wormholes into details—he wants to remember everything, it seems—and your reaction to that will determine if this a worthwhile read for you. If you like word-rampant journal-intense missives with lots of famous names and movies heavily and organically sprinkled in, this might be your jam. If not, check out his earlier, more tightly edited works, starting with his first Vic Valentine novel Love Stories Are Too Violent for Me.

[**eighty of the pages are photographs]

Slowly We Die by Emelie Schepp

 

(pb; 2016: third book in the Jana Berzelius series. Translated from the Swedish by Suzanne Martin Cheadle.)

From the back cover

“A tragic incident on the operating table leaves a patient damaged for life and leads a young surgeon to abandon his profession as a physician. . . Now, years later, a series of senseless, gruesome murders are rocking the same medical community.

“Then murderous revenge. . . The weapon? A surgical scalpel. But who exactly is preying on these victims? And why? What does this grisly pattern reveal? And who will be the one to stop it? Special prosecutor Jana Berzelius, who has her own dark secrets to hide, is in charge of the investigation. What she can’t know, until she is finally closing in on the murderer, is just how her mother’s recent death is intimately connected.”

Review

Slowly, like the two Jana Berzelius books that preceded it, is a gripping, reader-immersive read. The set-up has changed, with Jana’s travails sharing equal story-space with a medical-personnel murder mystery, with Danilo Peña (who’s escaped police custody) posing a different kind of threat—seemingly relatively benign, but potentially more invasive. Slowly is another skillfully woven thriller by Schepp, one worth owning, and one that makes me wish that Schepp’s fourth Berzelius novel, Daddy’s Boy (Swedish: Pappas Pojke), was translated into English and released in English-reading countries.