Well...I tried to formulate my thoughts into some kind of explanation and this is what I came up with...Its about a minor character in the movie "Aliens" a film that for all intents and purposes, is totes in charge. Fuckin' kids today with their slang.
Actually I'm just blastin' sand up yer skirts. I wrote this a few months ago while watching Hellraiser II: Hellbound (abomination) in the airport on one of my many trips home. I really fucking like 'Aliens'.
Ok, "Fuck Her Gently" just came on, and I need to help these people sing along, so enjoy the "piece" "called" "Gorman" that I "wrote"...[whoa: hitting space bar here accidentally made me stop Europe's "The Final Countdown" mid-intro...apparently, on the macs, and in itunes, when you just switch back to check the song, "space bar" means "stop/play"...so I just stopped Gob's theme song during the best part...the keyboard riff-o... in a crowded bar full of beer-pongers at 2 am on a Friday night. I just ducked a beer bottle...and a prosthetic leg. Don't drink and blog people.]
...and oh yeah, I barely edited this. Strunk and White is punks.
Gorman
This is the guy...
I started watching Hellraiser II, and in the course of its hand holding, signposting, cloying, ball-scratching over-exposition, I realized something that maybe only a few nerds and 80's movie freaks have realized. Lt. Gorman is in Hellraiser II!!! That's right, the green, inexperienced, weak lieutenant who marched Sgt. Apone and his sorry marines into hot doom under the primary heat exchangers in Hadley's Hope, the sole settlers complex on the similarly doomed planet, LV 426.
I suddenly really really really want to watch Aliens. Wait...not want. I need to watch that movie. I may walk down to the horridly overpriced DVD kiosk in this airport and drop my hard earned money on that masterpiece. For the film is so perfect that even Gorman, a minor character played by a throwaway 80's actor (Now! With the med student guy from Hellraiser II!!), was played perfectly, or at least the tumblers (casting, script, wardrobe, jimmy cameron) lined up for this young wide eyed actor to be the perfect fit to play the military brat who probably got his stripes through letters from his rich brass uncles, as opposed to hard scars and mud cuts in the trenches.
He sucks in Hellraiser II, but in Aliens, he's perfect. The way when he takes off his hat, rubbing his newly short hair, he's obviously confused by the unfamiliar (yet required) military buzz cut he most certainly received just hours before. The way he opens up his first speech to his own troops... he cant even remember their names...
(Hudson raises hand)
Gorman: What is it, Hicks?
Hudson: Hudson, sir. He's Hicks
Gorman (looking embarassed): What is it, private?
He spits out the word "private" like a watermelon seed covered in bile. Covering up his own embarassment by reducing his man to his rank, comforted again by his undeserved place on the totem pole.
Oh, he is most certainly going to fuck this thing up.
The way he most certainly skipped most levels of military protocol. He skipped the destruction of his spirit and identity in boot camp, he skipped the rebuilding and re-tooling of his psyche to be an effective weapon of destruction for The Colonial Marines.
He is going into battle just as you or I would...callow and confused and shackled with the weight and trouble of a lifetime of human emotions. He is going to crack nearly instantly and everyone knows it.
"How many drops is this for you, lieutenant?"
"38......simulated"
"How many combat drops?"
"Uhhh....2.....including this one"
That is just Gorman. That doesn't even touch the wild humanity of Hudson, the career-company man focused indifference of Burke (again, perfect casting of Paul fucking Reiser), the sleepy eyed power of Hicks falling asleep peacefully as he descends into hell, the tough fatherly guidance of Apone who knows he is just as fucked as the grunts he is supposed to lead, the weirdness and odd spirituality of Drake with his reckless charms hanging from his rifle, and his valkyrie Vasquez (they were totally fucking) who only needs. to. know. one. thing. "Where. They. Are".
Shit, there's even Farro, with her "fly me friendly" stamp, all "I can drink you the fuck under the table" confidence behind classic aviator shades. A fighter, even after she gets her skull perforated she fights to clear her windscreen of her own blood. She was also the blueprint for the new style Starbuck.
That says nothing of Ripley, Nothing of the ultimate heroine, someone who by dumb chance is now doomed to exist only when the perfect killing organism rears its ugly head. The only time she wakes up is when there is bug hunting to do. The only time she goes to sleep is when its over....until the next time.
Yeah, I really fucking want to watch Aliens now.
"Man whats this crap supposed to be?"
"Cornbread i think."
Just for shits...
1 comment:
Your lack of love for Bishop is a shame, my son. He is truly the story-behind-the-story in Aliens. He, an artificial human, learns lessons of courage, perseverance, and in the end, self-sacrifice for the good of others. Oh the irony: a robot who is more human than the humans who hold him in varying levels of contempt. That and he has mad skills at that fun knife game.
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